Preamble

The House met at Half past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

MESSAGES FROM THE QUEEN

The VICE-CHAMBERLAIN OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Mr. STUDHOLME) reported Her Majesty's answers to Addresses, as follows:

PATENTS AND DESIGNS

I have received your Address praying that the Patents (Extension of Period of Emergency) Order, 1952, and the Registered Designs (Extension of Period of Emergency) Order, 1952, be made in the form of the respective drafts laid before Parliament.

I will comply with your request.

EMERGENCY POWERS

I have received your Address praying that the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act, 1945, and the various Defence Regulations and enactments which you specify be continued in force, respectively, for a further period of one year until the 10th day of December, 1953.

I will give directions accordingly.

PRIVATE BUSINESS

GREENOCK CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read the Third time, and passed.

PETITION (GIN TRAPS)

Mr. Peter Freeman: I wish to present a Petition protesting against the continued use of gin traps for the purpose of catching rabbits. This has been signed by about a quarter of a million people, beaded by the Chairman of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the present Father of the House the right hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Grenfell).
The Petition reads as follows:
Your petitioners desire that the gin steel-toothed trap shall be outlawed immediately and that the control of rabbits and other animals must be effected by other existing cleaner and non-barbarous methods. Wherefore your petitioners pray your honourable House to take immediate action.
And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
Petition to lie upon the Table.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE

Research Institutes (Expenditure)

Mr. Erroll: asked the Minister of Agriculture why the capital expenditure on colleges and institutions increased from £155,000 in 1951–52 to £400,000 in 1952–53.

The Minister of Agriculture (Sir Thomas Dugdale): This increased expenditure is required to meet the urgent need to modernise and expand research facilities as one of the basic means of increasing the output of food. There has been little building at most of the agricultural research institutes for many years and existing facilities are inadequate for the increased scientific staffs and for the work to be carried out.

Mr. Erroll: Will the Minister, nevertheless, bear in mind the urgent need for economy all the time?

Mr. Peart: Will the Minister resist any demand from his back benchers to cut down on very important agricultural research?

Sir T. Dugdale: Yes, Sir. I think that the economy referred to may be false economy in the long run. Some of our stations are world famous, especially those dealing with foot-and-mouth disease at Pirbright and at Rothamsted.

Legal Department, Staff

Mr. Erroll: asked the Minister of Agriculture why his Department needs 79 in his legal department as compared with 65 in 1951–52.

Sir T. Dugdale: The estimated increase in the staff of my legal department is due to a general increase in work falling to


them. The reasons for this include additional work for the Forestry Commission on conveyancing and dedication schemes and increasing pressure to clear off arrears in debt collection under the Goods and Services Scheme.
The number of staff now in post is 77 compared with 60 on 1st April, 1951.

Mr. Erroll: Can the Minister say whether any of this increased staff is required to do work in connection with prosecutions against members of the public?

Sir T. Dugdale: No doubt some of their work may be for that purpose.

Sir W. Smithers: Does the Minister realise the growing resentment among the farming industry at the increased number of snoopers?

Production Targets

Mr. Peart: asked the Minister of Agriculture (1) the present levels of production of principal crops, wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, sugar beet, expressed as percentages of pre-war production; and the proposed production targets to be reached by 1955–56 for each crop, respectively;
(2) the present levels of production of livestock products, milk, eggs, beef and veal, mutton and lamb, pigmeat, expressed as percentages of pre-war production; and the proposed production targets to be reached by 1955–56 for each product, respectively.

Sir T. Dugdale: The comparison of present and pre-war levels of production requires a table of figures and I will, if I may, circulate this in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
As for the second part of the Question, we do not intend to set detailed targets for 1955–56. As stated in the White Paper issued last May, the general objective for 1956 is to raise the net agricultural output to at least 60 per cent. above the pre-war level. Paragraph 12 of the White Paper sets out illustrations of more detailed objectives agreed as reasonable with the resources in prospect.

Mr. Peart: Is the Minister aware that, while it is important to have a general target, in 1947 the Labour Government set specific targets? As it is important

that the agricultural community should have guidance, will he reconsider his decision?

Sir T. Dugdale: No, Sir. That is where my hon. Friends are in conflict with the Opposition. We think that the best way is, as far as possible, to get the products in various areas according to the conditions in those areas and to leave it to the man on the spot.

Mr. Peart: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the specific targets of the Labour Government took into account the needs of certain areas and that, in conjunction with the farmers and the county agricultural executive committees, the plan worked satisfactorily? Will he reconsider the matter?

Sir T. Dugdale: I cannot reconsider it. This is a question of main policy. We hope to get results by this method.

Following is the information:
Production in 1951–52, expressed as percentages of pre-war production, is shown.


INDEX NUMBERS OF VOLUME OF OUTPUT


—
1936–39 (Average)
1951–52 (Provisional)


Livestock Products:




Beef and Veal
…
100
104


Mutton and Lamb
…
100
71


Pigmeat
…
100
96


Milk
…
100
129


Eggs
…
100
123


Wool
…
100
71


Crops:




Wheat
…
100
138


Barley
…
100
293


Oats
…
100
154


Potatoes
…
100
157


Sugar Beet
…
100
156

Workers (Reduction)

Mr. Peart: asked the Minister of Agriculture the reasons for the recent decline in the number of regular workers employed in agriculture; and what steps he is taking to remedy this position.

Sir T. Dugdale: The main reasons for the decline since 1949 have been the keen competition for labour from other industries, and since November, 1951, the call-up of young farm workers.
I am watching the position very closely and shall do my utmost, with the help


of my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of Labour to meet any serious difficulties as they arise.

Mr. Peart: Is the Minister aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in a recent debate that the decline was attributed to mechanisation, and would he correct his colleague's misapprehension?

Sir T. Dugdale: I cannot add to the answer that I have given.

Fowl Population

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Agriculture the fowl population at the latest convenient date; and how this compares with the same date the year before.

Sir T. Dugdale: According to the latest census the total number of fowl in Great Britain on 4th September this year was 59,113,000. The corresponding figure for last year was 59,287,000.

Lieut-Colonel Lipton: Is the Minister in a position to give the House any information about the alarming outbreak of fowl pest, which will have a very serious effect on our fowl population?

Sir T. Dugdale: That is altogether another question. I cannot give any detailed information now, but I can assure the House that I am watching the situation very carefully indeed.

Animals (Veterinary Treatment)

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he has considered the Report of his Departmental Committee on Licences, in reference to the issue of licences under Section 7 of the Veterinary Surgeons Act; and what action he proposes to take in the matter to restrict the number of people permitted to give treatment to animals and perform minor operations.

Sir T. Dugdale: I assume that the hon. Member is referring to the Report of the Committee, under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Champion) set up to advise me on problems raised by certain applications for licences under Section 7 of the Veterinary Surgeons Act, 1948. I have accepted the recommendations of the Committee and am in touch with the animal welfare societies concerned with

regard to their implementation particularly the recommendation relating to the employment of veterinary surgeons part-time.

Mr. Freeman: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that no action taken under his regulations will in any way place a restriction upon people at any time helping sick or injured animals or birds when it is within their means or power to do so?

Sir T. Dugdale: I must have notice of that question.

Mr. Collick: Can the Minister explain the reason for the delay since the Report was made to him?

Sir T. Dugdale: The Report was published some months ago and we have since had consultations with various bodies. The Report is now public property. I have accepted its recommendations, and there has not been any undue delay.

Mr. Harold Davies: Might not the treatment of animals by unqualified people be eliminated if the Government established a national veterinary service which would enable the small farmer to obtain qualified services?

Sir T. Dugdale: That is another question.

Idle Acres

Mr. Follick: asked the Minister of Agriculture what acreage is idle covering the whole country, and in Leicestershire in particular; and why these idle acres are not put to agricultural uses.

Sir T. Dugdale: There are no statistics readily available to show the acreage which is capable of agricultural production, but which is not in agricultural use at the present time. The hon. Member probably has in mind airfields and military camps no longer in active Service use. I am not aware that there is any significant neglect of food production on these sites.

Mr. Follick: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of very large tracts of abandoned willow-growing land in the vicinity of Castle Donnington, which used to have a prosperous basket-weaving industry, and that these would make admirable grazing and poplar-growing areas? Will he find out why the county agricultural


executive committees are not giving much more attention to such waste lands, which could be made to give our people the benefit of greater production?

Sir T. Dugdale: I received the hon. Member's letter this morning. I will look into the matter and write him a full and detailed reply.

Mr. Manuel: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what is the decrease in the tilled acreage during the past two years?

Sir T. Dugdale: I cannot give an approximate figure.

Mr. T. Brown: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to survey all industrial areas, particularly those in the north-west and the north-east, to see if some of the land now lying idle under water or covered by pit-heaps can be restored for agricultural or tree-growing purposes, in view of the great inroads being made upon our agricultural land for airports and housing?

Sir T. Dugdale: I am watching the situation in all parts of the country. Hon. Members will appreciate the difficulties of getting any figures which would be of help to the House.

Wages Act Infringements

Mr. P. Wells: asked the Minister of Agriculture the number of investigations undertaken by his inspectors into alleged infringements of Wages Board Orders since the Agricultural Wages Act, 1947, became operative; the amount of wages recovered; and the number of prosecutions involved.

Sir T. Dugdale: During the five years ending 30th September last, 5,610 investigations into alleged infringements of the Agricultural Wages Acts were carried out by my inspectors and £71,254 3s. 9d. was recovered by way of arrears of wages. Prosecution was undertaken in 131 cases.

Mr. Wells: In view of those figures, is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that his staff of inspectors is adequate to the work?

Sir T. Dugdale: Yes, Sir, I think so. Part of their work is to make test inspections, and during those inspections, which are carried out throughout the country, the proportion of cases of this sort is under 2 per cent.

Mr. Robens: Would it not be helpful if the agricultural workers joined their appropriate trade union organisation, which could safely look after their interests in this matter?

Sir T. Dugdale: That is another question.

Farm Institutes (Vacancies)

Commander Maitland: asked the Minister of Agriculture how many agricultural institute places are available to students within his area of responsibility; how many of these are vacant this year; and to what he attributes the reason for the vacancies.

Sir T. Dugdale: Out of 1,930 places, 390 are vacant. Some of these vacancies are undoubtedly due to the call-up, but there may also be some lack of knowledge of the training offered at farm institutes, particularly in counties where institutes are new.

Commander Maitland: Will my right hon. Friend consult his colleagues to see whether deferment could be granted to enable the young agriculturist to take advantage of this very valuable course and to permit an increase in agricultural production?

Sir T. Dugdale: Those consultations are now taking place.

Mr. Peart: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether local authorities are cutting down grants for students to agricultural colleges?

Sir T. Dugdale: No, Sir.

Agriculture Act (Operation)

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Minister of Agriculture to amend the Agriculture Act, 1947, to bring it into line with Britain's undertaking given in the Declaration of Human Rights at the Assembly of the United Nations on 10th December, 1948, which states that no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Sir T. Dugdale: I am advised that the Agriculture Act, 1947, in no way conflicts with the Declaration of Human Rights of 10th December, 1948.

Sir W. Smithers: Does not my right hon. Friend realise that a Conservative Minister still wields what are, in effect, dictatorial powers, against which there is


no appeal to an English judge and jury? Does he also realise that we shall continue our protests until such time as the historic rights of free Englishmen are restored to dispossessed farmers?

Provincial Offices

Mr. Peyton: asked the Minister of Agriculture (1) if he will outline the principal functions performed by the provincial offices of his Department; and to what extent these functions have been increased over the past four years;
(2) why, during the past four years, the total number of staff employed in the provincial offices of his Department has been materially increased.

Sir T. Dugdale: The principal functions of the provincial officers in my Department are to give specialist advice in the various branches of agricultural science and advice on estate management, land use and smallholdings. In the past four years, there has been some expansion of these functions. The increase in staff has been due to the requirements of the work arising out of these functions, but I have given instructions that there are to be no further increases in provincial office staff without my approval.

Mr. Peyton: While accepting the Minister's reply, may I ask him to ensure that where possible there shall be a reduction in staff? May I also ask him to ensure that in the field of research there is no duplication of work and that the same tasks are not performed by industry, by the universities and by his own Department?

Sir T. Dugdale: Yes, Sir. I think that is an important point, which I am watching all the time.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Has not the increase in staff been accompanied by a large increase in food production?

Sir T. Dugdale: Yes, it has.

Horses (Transport)

Mr. Peyton: asked the Minister of Agriculture if he is now satisfied that the present regulations governing the transportation of horses in the United Kingdom provide adequate safeguards against cruelty; and that such regulations are fully and sufficiently enforced.

Sir T. Dugdale: Yes, Sir, in respect of Great Britain. My responsibility does not extend to Northern Ireland.

Mr. Peyton: Would my right hon. Friend watch this matter with great care, as it has given rise to considerable public concern?

Sir T. Dugdale: Yes, Sir, certainly.

Mr. G. Jeger: Is the Minister satisfied that he will be able to watch all the things he has promised to watch if he cuts down his staff, as suggested by some of his hon. Friends?

Rabbits (Gin Traps)

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the fact that an alternative trap for the destruction of rabbits is now available, and of the cruelty involved in the use of the present gin-trap, he will arrange a date when the latter will be prohibited.

Dr. Stross: asked the Minister of Agriculture the considerations that have, up to this date, prevented him from forbidding the use of gin traps for snaring rabbits.

Sir T. Dugdale: As I said in answer to a Question on 1st August, I have no power to prohibit the use of gin traps. Supplies of the new "Imber" trap have been delayed owing to a manufacturing difficulty, but are expected to be available early in the New Year for testing under working conditions in the Ministry's contract service. It will consequently be some time before we can tell how the new trap performs under everyday conditions.

Mr. Freeman: Is the Minister aware that the gin trap has already been banned in six other European countries, and that there are at least 10 or 12 alternative methods of destroying rabbits? Can action be taken to prohibit this cruel and barbarous method of catching rabbits, which also catches other animals and causes great suffering?

Sir T. Dugdale: Yes, Sir, but we must be certain that what we put in its place will do the job humanely. We must have these tests to see how this new trap will operate over a period of time.

Dr. Stross: Does the Minister's answer mean that by next spring at the latest we may expect action by him in this matter?

Sir T. Dugdale: No, Sir, it does not mean that there will be action in the form of legislation. It means that I hope we shall have the results to go on. The reason I gave a lengthy answer today is because I implied in my answer on 1st August that these traps would be introduced by the autumn of this year. But that is impossible, owing to manufacturing difficulties, and I wished to make that clear to the House.

Captain Pilkington: Since this question has been under consideration by my right hon. Friend's Department for a very long time, can he expedite the matter?

Sir T. Dugdale: We are doing all we can to get on with it.

Mr. H. Hynd: Will the N.U.R. be consulted about this? The "National Union of Rabbits" may have decided views on the subject.

New Forest Ponies (Slaughter)

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Agriculture if he will introduce legislation to prevent the breeding and rearing of ponies in the New Forest for the purpose of sale and subsequent slaughter for human consumption.

Sir T. Dugdale: No, Sir. I do not think that this is necessary. There is no reason for thinking that New Forest ponies are, in general, bred and reared with the intention of selling them for slaughter.

Mr. Beswick: Does the Minister realise that he gives the impression of being very complacent about this matter? Is he aware that there is widespread public feeling against this repulsive trade being furthered by the use of these common lands for the breeding and rearing of ponies? Will he at least see that un-weaned foals are not sold for this purpose?

Sir T. Dugdale: There is no evidence to show that New Forest ponies are being bought for slaughter. Their numbers have to be kept down, and they are sold normally from time to time.

Mr. Nicholson: Is my right hon. Friend saying that the only New Forest ponies sold for slaughter are those which it is necessary to destroy to reduce the pony population? Is not he aware that there is this trade going on, which surely is of a repulsive nature?

Sir T. Dugdale: If the number of ponies in the New Forest were not kept down there would be great suffering caused to other ponies owing to the shortage of winter keep.

Mr. Beswick: Cannot the Minister keep down the pony population by other methods? Is he aware that I can give him the names of people who have had to buy unweaned foals to save them from getting into the hands of horse meat traders?

Sir T. Dugdale: I do not think that that would meet the case.

Goats (Rations)

Mr. Murray: asked the Minister of Agriculture if he is aware that the rations granted for goats are inadequate; that goats milk is urgently required by hospitals and ailing people; and if he will examine the position with a view to increasing the rations.

Sir T. Dugdale: No, Sir. Rations for goats depend on the quantity of milk produced and are on much the same scale as for dairy cows. I have consulted my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, but he is not aware of any urgent unsatisfied demand for goats' milk as suggested.

Mr. Murray: Is the Minister aware that the Durham Society of Goat Keepers say that the rations are hopelessly inadequate at the present time? Does he agree that in the summer months a dry goat receives the same quantity of rations as a goat giving 10 to 15 lb. of milk a day? Will he therefore look at the matter again to see if he can encourage goat keepers who are trying to do a good job of work?

Sir T. Dugdale: This point has been drawn to the attention of the Ministry on previous occasions, and the view has always been held that to grant further rations to goats would be to treat goats better than cows. But if the hon. Member has a particular case in mind to which he wishes to draw my attention I will investigate it.

Farms (Piped Water)

Mr. Harold Davies: asked the Minister of Agriculture what percentage of farms now have a piped water supply in the county of Stafford and in the United Kingdom as a whole.

Sir T. Dugdale: I regret that this information is not available.

Mr. Davies: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will be able to make the information available soon and if not, whether he is endeavouring to ensure that a fair share of raw materials are allocated for this important matter of supplying water and electricity, in view of the need for increased productivity in agriculture?

Sir T. Dugdale: To obtain this information regularly would call for still further returns from the farmers, which I do not think would be justified. The answer to the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question is, most certainly.

Mr. Davies: How can the Conservative Party claim that they are extending piped water supplies to farms to a greater degree than the Labour Party did if they have no returns?

Mr. G. R. Howard: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there are other parts of the country which have claims for a piped water supply?

Pesticides

Dr. Stross: asked the Minister of Agriculture his plans for intensified research into agricultural problems, particularly on the effect of the use of pesticides.

Sir T. Dugdale: Agricultural research including research on pesticides is being intensified as far as economic conditions allow. For details of current work I would refer the hon. Member to the Agricultural Research Council's "Index of Agricultural Research in Progress," published by the Stationery Office.

Dr. Stross: Will the Minister bear in mind that the current view is that some of these compounds are absorbed by growing plants, and, therefore, that the use of some of them, like the phosphorus compounds, may be very dangerous to human beings, even in small amounts? Will he watch the whole matter carefully?

Sir T. Dugdale: Yes, Sir.

Grey Squirrels

Mr. Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture the average cost of destroying a grey squirrel in Hertfordshire and other counties where the agricultural executive committees pay in cartridges for the grey squirrels destroyed.

Sir T. Dugdale: County agricultural executive committees do not actually pay in cartridges for grey squirrels destroyed, but they issue cartridges free to approved grey squirrel clubs. The average cost of destroying a grey squirrel in Hertfordshire last winter was about 6½d. I have no comparable figures for other counties.

Foot-and-Mouth Disease

Mr. Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture if the Departmental committee reviewing foot-and-mouth disease policy has started to take evidence from farmers, veterinary surgeons and others; and whether the committee will investigate the policies pursued by other countries in Europe and South America.

Sir T. Dugdale: Yes, Sir. The committee has already held nine meetings and is taking evidence from farmers, veterinary surgeons and others. It is investigating the policies adopted by European countries and countries on the American Continents.

Mr. Hurd: Will members of the committee be able to visit places like Holland and Denmark, who have rather similar problems to our own?

Sir T. Dugdale: Yes, Sir. I understand that they will visit various European countries, probably including France, Switzerland, Western Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and, very likely, Argentina.

Poultry Rations

Mr. Hurd: asked the Minister of Agriculture if, so as to ensure that more pullets are reared and egg production increased next autumn, he will arrange for poultry farmers to draw increased rations of good quality chick mash from January onwards.

Sir T. Dugdale: I fear that increased poultry rations could at present be given only at the expense of other kinds of livestock, but I will certainly look into this suggestion.

Mr. Hurd: Will my right hon. Friend make an announcement, if it can be a favourable one, before the New Year, so that hatcheries and small poultry producers will know that they can get extra food of the right kind in time for the rearing season next spring?

Sir T. Dugdale: I will certainly let my decision on this matter be known at the earliest possible moment, and before the New Year.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Does that answer mean that the right hon. Gentleman will rely on the importation of foreign eggs in order to build up a reserve stock for next autumn?

Sir T. Dugdale: It means nothing of the kind. My answer means exactly what it says.

Anthrax

Mr. Crouch: asked the Minister of Agriculture the number of outbreaks of anthrax that have occurred during each of the last six months.

Sir T. Dugdale: As the reply contains a table of figures I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Crouch: Is my right hon. Friend not alarmed at the increase that has occurred in the outbreaks of anthrax during the last few months? Further, is it correct that farmers do not get compensation for animals that die as a result of anthrax?

Sir T. Dugdale: I am certainly very concerned about the increase in this disease during the past year. Perhaps my hon. Friend will put down a Question in respect of the second part of his supplementary question.

Following is the reply:


OUTBREAKS OF ANTHRAX, JUNE TO NOVEMBER, 1952


June
…
…
…
31


July
…
…
…
90


August
…
…
…
123


September
…
…
…
170


October
…
…
…
185


November
…
…
…
209

Mr. Crouch: asked the Minister of Agriculture (1) if he will trace the origin of the outbreaks of anthrax during the last six months;
(2) the results of recent research into the cause of anthrax and its prevention.

Sir T. Dugdale: It is known that anthrax is caused by the specific organism bacillus anthracis. Research work has resulted in the production of satisfactory vaccine for the protection of livestock; this vaccine is being made available to veterinary surgeons.
The special inquiries into sources of infection and possible further safeguards, to which I referred in the reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. Hurd) on 30th October, are still in progress.

Mr. P. Wells: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the serious increase in anthrax, especially among pigs, he will make anthrax vaccine more readily available to farmers.

Sir T. Dugdale: I am arranging for the vaccine to be made available generally to veterinary surgeons for use at their discretion. It is not proposed to allow farmers to purchase the vaccine direct, since it is important that it should be administered under veterinary advice.

Mr. G. Wilson: asked the Minister of Agriculture if he is aware of the recent increase in cases of anthrax; and if he is satisfied that all necessary precautions are being taken to prevent outbreaks of anthrax in livestock causing danger to human beings.

Sir T. Dugdale: Yes, Sir. The main danger arises from contact with the blood or other infected material from animals which have died of anthrax. Elaborate precautions are taken to ensure the safe disposal of infected carcases and material.

Mr. Wilson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his answer will give considerable satisfaction to a number of people who have been expressing anxiety on the subject?

Tile and Mole Drainage Grant

Mr. P. Wells: asked the Minister of Agriculture the estimated additional sum involved by basing the tile and mole drainage grant on 50 per cent. of net cost, instead of the normal maximum.

Sir T. Dugdale: The additional expenditure involved by this concession in a full financial year is estimated at £75,000.

Mr. Wells: Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied that this alteration is necessary?

Sir T. Dugdale: Yes, Sir, in view of the increased cost.

Mr. Bullard: Is my right hon. Friend aware that money spent on draining land


is probably the best investment that this country can make?

Sir T. Dugdale: I agree with my hon. Friend.

Cattle (Agricultural Holdings)

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Agriculture the number of cattle on agricultural holdings at the latest available date; and the number at the corresponding date last year.

Sir T. Dugdale: The number of cattle in the United Kingdom in September, 1952, was 10,081,000, compared with 10,310,000 a year earlier.

Mr. Willey: Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that this continuing decline is very disturbing and must eventually affect beef production, and that it is time he did something drastic about it?

Sir T. Dugdale: The decline is, for the most part, in yearlings, and must show the downward trend in calf rearing in the preceding year. Actually, there has been an increase of more than 2 per cent. in the number of calves, and there is evidence that during the summer this increase has been accelerated.

Potatoes

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Agriculture the estimated quantity of potatoes harvested in 1952; and how this compares with the quantity harvested in 1951.

Sir T. Dugdale: According to present estimates, 7,300,000 tons. This compares with 8,284,000 tons in 1951.

Mr. Willey: Is the fall sufficient to indicate that we may have to contend with supply difficulties this year or next year?

Sir T. Dugdale: As at present advised I think there is no reason to expect a shortage. Reports from counties show that the quality and condition of potato crops is fairly satisfactory and that in the main, there should be very little wastage.

Major Legge-Bourke: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that many people in the largest potato growing area of East Anglia are of the opinion that there is a general decline and that is likely to go on unless radical steps are taken to put it right?

Calf Subsidy (Qualification Standard)

Colonel J. H. Harrison: asked the Minister of Agriculture what instructions he has given as to standards to be applied for qualification for the beef calf subsidy.

Sir T. Dugdale: The standard I propose to apply is that prescribed in the draft calf subsidies scheme for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Instruction in the application of that standard by the officers who will inspect and certify calves for the subsidy is being given by means of practical demonstrations.

Colonel Harrison: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a livestock officer of his Department gave a demonstration recently in Cambridge, and that there is great concern among farmers in the Eastern area at the very high standard set because they think that the result will be that less meat will be produced rather than more?

Sir T. Dugdale: The draft scheme has been laid before the House. Perhaps my hon. and gallant Friend will raise that point when the scheme comes to be debated.

Mr. Crouch: If my right hon. Friend finds that this scheme is not going as well as he expects will he reconsider it and perhaps issue fresh instructions as the months go by?

Sir T. Dugdale: Yes, Sir.

Mr. J. T. Price: Is it not surprising that agricultural production, as revealed in this last batch of Questions, is in inverse ratio to the subsidies paid to the agricultural industry?

Mr. Murray: asked the Minister of Agriculture how many forms are to be filled up to claim the calf subsidy; and why three officers were required to visit a farm, of which he has been informed, and inspect 10 heifer calves to establish qualification for this subsidy.

Sir T. Dugdale: One application form. One of my livestock husbandry officers recently visited several farms in Durham in company with two newly appointed certifying officers whom he was training in judging the eligibility of calves for the subsidy. Normally, one officer only will visit farms to inspect and certify calves for the subsidy.

Mr. Murray: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Mr. Hugill, of Wolsingham, is a life-long experienced farmer and is being penalised for producing and feeding good cattle? Will the Minister have another look at this matter and see whether something can be done about it? Would he also explain the Durham County Agricultural Committee's saying this:
The Ministry's instructions are that where animals born in October, 1951, are concerned owners must produce documentary proof of date of birth.
What is meant by "documentary proof"?

Sir T. Dugdale: I can say straight away that there has been no change of policy towards farmers who are producing good sheep and cattle.

Mr. Bullard: Can my right hon. Friend say whether there has been any radical change in the standards required, and in the qualifications for the subsidy, for steer calves? Is he aware that a number of people who are rearing Friesian steer calves are very much afraid that they will be excluded from the subsidy entirely?

Sir T. Dugdale: I take the opportunity of definitely informing the House that there has been no change.

Mr. Murray: I was not able to hear all the right hon. Gentleman's reply. Does he really mean that the bigger and better the cattle the greater the penalty for producing it?

Sir T. Dugdale: No, Sir. This scheme will have to be worked on a commonsense basis. What we want to get at the end of the day is good beef cattle. The scheme has not actually started yet. The Order is now before the House and when it gets the approval of Parliament the scheme will be under way, and a lot of these fears will be found to be groundless.

Oral Answers to Questions — ANGLERS, LEICESTER (LICENCE FEES)

Mr. Janner: asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that the fees for a licence to fish for freshwater fish with a single rod and line have been raised from 2s., charged by the Nene and Welland Fishery Board, to 8s., charged by the Nene River Board and the Welland River Board; that the anglers of

Leicester, who are mainly working men, are disturbed by this increase, and that the increase in unwarranted; and whether he will take steps to prevent the increased charge from being imposed.

Sir T. Dugdale: From 1st January next an angler who fishes for freshwater fish in the area of the Nene River Board will pay the Board 5s. in licence duty; an angler similarly fishing in the area of the Welland River Board will pay the Welland Board 2s. The two licences to cover the whole of the former Nene and Welland Fishery District will cost 7s. in all.
I have approved the new rate of duty recently determined by the Nene River Board, because I am satisfied that it is necessary to enable the Board to maintain an adequate standard of supervision and development of the fisheries.

Mr. Janner: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that hitherto the total fee has been 2s. and that the anglers of Leicester look upon the action as disgraceful and one of wholesale profit-making? Is he also aware that I have received information from the secretary of one of the angling clubs in Leicester who states that he has been compelled to cancel venues in that area for 1953 in consequence of the exorbitant charge? Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that the working people in that district have an opportunity to carry on legitimate pursuits of this nature without being hindered by such exorbitant charges?

Sir T. Dugdale: I should like to inform the House that the old fishery board was making a loss during the last three years, and that if it had continued it would have had to increase the licence fee. I should also like to assure the House that the extra charge is solely for restocking and improvement of fisheries and is not due to expenditure on other River Board activities.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL DEFENCE

Recruitment

Sir I. Fraser: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will make a statement on the progress of recruiting for the Civil Defence services.

Mr. F. Maclean: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress is being made with recruiting for the Civil Defence service.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir David Maxwell Fyfe): On 31st October, 1952, the number of volunteers in England and Wales was approximately: Civil Defence Corps, 222,000; Auxiliary Fire Service, 13,200; National Hospital Service Reserve, 27,200. The Civil Defence Corps has reached 48 per cent. of its provisional peace-time establishment and the Auxiliary Fire Service and the National Hospital Service Reserve 21 per cent. and 27 per cent.; the decrease in the National Hospital Service Reserve percentage since I answered a similar Question by my hon. Friend on 15th May reflects an increase of 20,000 in the target figure.
Since mid-summer there has been an encouraging upward trend in recruitment: the increase during the third quarter of 1952 was 14,835 compared with 9,298 in the third quarter of 1951 and the figure for October, 1952 (9,900) was nearly twice that of the preceding October. These figures do not include those engaged in Civil Defence in industry or in the special constabulary.

Sir I. Fraser: When will my right hon. and learned Friend be able to say whether the suggestions in a recent report are to be implemented by Her Majesty's Government? Will he bear in mind that the more people know the better they work, and will he give them all possible information about atomic dangers and risks?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The report came out on Monday and I have already said that I have accepted the recommendation to appoint controllers designate. At a meeting of local authorities this week I tried to indicate the latest position with regard to atomic matters after the Monte Bello experiment. I would add that the figures I have given relate only to England and Wales. The figure for the whole of the United Kingdom, taking into account the special constabulary, the staff of local authorities, and those in industry engaged on Civil Defence, must be over 400,000.
While that is no figure for complacency, it is no figure for despondency. I do not think that this country has ever

made a greater effort in time of peace and I do not think any other country has made an equal effort. I hope it will continue.

Mr. Usborne: Does the Home Secretary realise that there are many people who think that it is more important to recruit to the Police Force than it is to emphasise recruitment to Civil Defence?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I hope we shall get recruits to both; and any assistance which the hon. Gentleman can give me in recruiting to the Police Force I shall be glad to receive.

Mr. Gower: Is the Minister aware that the severe age restrictions are possibly preventing willing men from entering both the Civil Defence and the Auxiliary Police Services, and that possibly those restrictions on the bottom age limit might be amended?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: There are various increases and improvements with regard to that, but I will willingly take into account any suggestions anyone may make.

Mr. Lee: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that last year some enjoyable competitions were organised in some parts of the country between various towns, but that this year, apparently, they are not being organised? They were very welcome, and if the Home Secretary could resurrect them it would be helpful.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I will look into that suggestion.

Mr. Porter: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the meeting to which he referred would have been more successful if the platform had been more representative of the people interested in Civil Defence, and if representatives of experts on this side had been on the platform instead of having a completely party organisation?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: With respect, I do not think that that is quite a fair reflection of the idea. The idea was to tell local authority representatives what the various Departments required of them. All the meetings I have addressed have been of a completely non-party character and I hope that will continue. The general policy on Civil Defence, and


support for it, has been entirely irrespective of party differences.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Shops (Winter Closing)

Mr. G. Williams: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department on what date the new winter closing hours for shops come into force.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The statutory closing hours for shops are now the same throughout the year.

Home Accidents (R.S.P.A. Grant)

Mr. Janner: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the increase in the number of deaths from accidents which have occurred in the home and in residential institutions, he will reconsider his decision with regard to payments of the grant to the Home Safety Committee of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: As I have already announced, I have decided after further consideration to make a further payment of £1,500 during the next financial year as the fifth and final instalment of the grant which it was decided in 1948 to make for the purpose of assisting the Society in developing their home safety work.

Mr. Janner: Is the Minister aware that there are now, on an average, 20 deaths a day from home accidents as compared with six fewer on the roads and 15 fewer at work? Is he not also aware that a million people go into hospital each year as a result of accidents which occur at home; and does he not think it is niggardly to stop this grant, which is of considerable importance in developing publicity and which has been successful in giving great assistance in the matter hitherto?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I have just said that I am not stopping the grant but will pay it for another year. I would point out to the hon. Gentleman that there is a provision in the Local Government Act, 1948, Section 136, which gives certain general powers to local authorities to contribute towards the expenses of such organisations with the consent of the

Minister of Housing and Local Government. I am empowered to say that my right hon. Friend is always prepared to consider any application for consent under the Section.

Mr. Janner: But does not the Minister know that the Minister of Housing and Local Government is very niggardly himself and that we cannot get any satisfaction from him here? How does he expect his right hon. Friend to be able to deal with a position of this description? Does he not think—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]. This is an important matter. Does not the Minister think he ought to look into the matter again and see that not £1,500 but many thousands are given for this purpose?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I am always prepared to look into any matter which the hon. Gentleman suggests, but I did not recognise his description of my right hon. Friend.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Is it not possible that the Royal Society, in the past, has felt itself somewhat inhibited from making forthright recommendations on the subject of accidents simply by virtue of the fact that it has received money from a Government Department?

Unauthorised Firearms (Maximum Penalties)

Mr. Janner: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will introduce legislation to amend the Firearms Act, 1937, so that the maximum prison sentence for anyone purchasing or possessing firearms or ammunition without a firearms certificate shall include a longer prison sentence than the present one of three months.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: No, Sir. The purchase or possession without a certificate of firearms or ammunition to which Part I of the Firearms Act, 1937, applies is a serious matter, but I have no reason to regard as inadequate the maximum penalties which may be inflicted for this offence.

Mr. Janner: Is not the Minister aware that there is a considerable increase in crimes which involve the use of these weapons? Will he not consider imposing a higher penalty on some kinds of the weapons which are referred to in the Act, if not on others, so that people shall be


afraid of carrying arms of that sort and thereby be prevented from using them?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I am quite prepared to consider the point, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that Sections 22 and 23 of the Firearms Act prescribe penalties of up to 14 years' imprisonment for convition on indictment for the possession of firearms with intent to injure or for their use and possession to resist arrest, and that Section 23 of the Larceny Act provides for a life sentence for the offence of armed robbery.

Mr. Ian Harvey: Would not my right hon. and learned Friend agree that this also involves the question of whose finger is on the trigger?

Mr. Janner: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman consider this again? Is he not aware, with all his vast experience of legal procedure, that there is considerable difficulty in proving intent in these cases, and does he not think that those difficulties should be removed?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I am always prepared to consider it, and, as I said. I shall.

Child's Death, Midlands (Comics)

Mr. Edelman: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has studied the case of a child in the Midlands, particulars of which have been sent to him, accidentally shot dead by a companion while reproducing a scene of violence observed in an American-style comic; and whether, arising out of this case, he will set up a Departmental committee of educationists, magistrates and child psychologists to study the effect of such comics on children, with a view to making recommendations for the benefit of parents and teachers.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: Yes, Sir. I have studied the case and I find that the children in question were not imitating a story they had read in an American-style comic. I have carefully considered the hon. Member's suggestion in consultation with my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Minister of Education, and I am not satisfied that the creation of a committee as proposed would achieve the end the hon. Member has in view.

Mr. Edelman: Whatever the interpretation of this particular case—and there may be other interpretations than that which the Home Secretary has given—is it not now generally established that these publications feed the imagination of children? Do they not tend to poison the minds of many young children? Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman not aware that many people, irrespective of party, are beginning to believe that his Department are showing a supine and complacent attitude to this very grave problem?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I cannot be responsible for views held. In the case in question, as far as the game was consciously based on any source, it seems to have been derived from confused recollections of a harmless British comic and a British Broadcasting Corporation programme.
The hon. Gentleman's second point is a very serious one. I have come to the view that reading is primarily a matter for parents, and that parents ought to deal with it. It is a matter for parental discipline and for public opinion, and I want everyone's help on it.

Mr. Edelman: While I agree that this is primarily a matter for parents and teachers, is it not precisely the purpose of the Question to show that the Home Office has a responsibility to give guidance to parents and teachers? Unless some agency is set up for so doing, how can that guidance properly be given?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I can only say that it is a difficult point. There are two different schools of thought. But I shall willingly consider anything that the hon. Gentleman puts forward as a practical proposition.

Mr. Legh: Will my right hon. and learned Friend consider setting up a Departmental committee of cranks to investigate the effects upon children of nursery rhymes such as "Ding Dong Dell"?

Mr. Manuel: "Mother Goose"?

Dr. Summerskill: Would not the Home Secretary agree that it is quite impossible for parents to exercise control over the reading of adolescents? Will he therefore look at the matter again?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I will look at it.

Mr. S. Silverman: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman explain how it is possible to reconcile the strong police action which is often taken, and quite rightly taken, in the case of alleged obscene literature, with the refusal to take any action whatever with regard to this mischievous rubbish, which does incalculably more harm?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman, even impliedly, supports the action that he has described. As he knows very well there is a long course of precedents on that matter which make the law relatively easy to carry into effect. I have studied the legislation of other countries, and one meets great difficulties when trying to legislate on this point.

Toy Weapons (Sale)

Mr. Edelman: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the public sale of imitation weapons which are capable of being converted into lethal arms; and what action he is taking to prevent this stimulus to violence.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I am aware there is some public anxiety about the sales of certain types of toy. As I said in reply to my hon. Friend, the Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers) on 11th November, any proposal to prohibit their sale raises considerable difficulties, but I am carefully examining the matter.

Mr. Edelman: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that these potential weapons are certainly not playthings, and would he not, meanwhile, give guidance to the public by declaring their sale as being contrary to public policy?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I have had an admirable voluntary response from the trade on this matter, and I think that the sales of a great number of these things have been greatly reduced; but I am quite unrepentant in the view that to prevent a small boy from having a toy pistol is nonsense.

Mr. Chetwynd: Is the Home Secretary aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Viant) is going to introduce a Private Bill to deal with this matter after Christmas? If the right hon. and learned Gentleman cannot

find time to deal with it himself, will he give general blessing to the objects of the Bill?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I am quite prepared to consider it.

Major Legge-Bourke: Does the term "imitation weapons" include the Motions of censure now standing on the Order Paper?

Oral Answers to Questions — POLICE

Metropolitan Force (Recruitment)

Mr. Dodds: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware of the concern at the small percentage of applicants for appointments to the Metropolitan Police force that are accepted at a time when more police are urgently required; and whether he is satisfied that the standard set is reasonable to allow for the necessary recruits to be obtained.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: While it continues to be a matter of concern that not enough recruits to the Metropolitan Police force are coming forward, the Commissioner of Police considers that the standards for entry which have already been lowered to meet the shortage of manpower since the war could not be further lowered without detriment to the force.

Mr. Dodds: While we all understand the need for a high standard, may I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman if he is aware that there is a good deal of misgiving among those who have seen some of the rejects and who feel that too much is being expected in these days, with the consequence that crime flourishes in the meantime?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: It is a difficult job, but I would remind the hon. Gentleman that in 1947 the pass mark for the educational examination was lowered and is now at the lowest level at which instruction in the Recruit Training School can be absorbed. The standard of general physique has also been lowered; the standards of height and physique are as low as for any other force in England and Wales. I do not think I can go further.

Mr. F. Maclean: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what progress is being made with recruiting for the Metropolitan Police.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: During the 12 months ended 31st October last, 1,251 men joined the Metropolitan Police force and 874 left, giving a net gain in strength of 377. This shows a welcome improvement over the previous 12 months, when there was a net loss of 390, but there is still a deficiency of nearly 3,700 men.

Mr. Maclean: Would my right hon. and learned Friend not agree that what is needed to attract more recruits to the Metropolitan Police is an improvement in the conditions of employment, particularly in regard to promotions, pay and pensions?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: The House will remember that the force not only had the Oaksey recommendation but the Trustram Eve award in the time of my predecessor, and I do not think that today pay is a decisive factor. One of the difficulties—this is why I have asked the House for its co-operation—is that the more difficulty we have in recruiting, the more calls are made on existing members at the week-end, and these hours make the service less attractive. Therefore, I hope for any help I can get in recruiting from hon. Members in any part of the House.

Lieut.-Colonel Lipton: Would it not help to encourage recruiting for the Metropolitan Police if the energies of those at present in the force were not frittered away on such piffling tasks as chasing corn-sellers and photographers in Trafalgar Square and putting into operation 500 or 600 summonses, all of which are to be heard at Bow Street in the near future?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: That is another question.

Patrol Cars (Cost)

Mr. Higgs: asked the Secretary of State of Home Department what instructions

or guidance is given to police authorities as to the price to be paid and type of car to be purchased for police patrol duties.

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: Police authorities have for some years past been asked to exercise the greatest care in authorising the purchase of cars of over 18 h.p. or costing more than £1,000, but otherwise the type of car selected for police patrol duties is a matter for the discretion of the individual police authority concerned.

Mr. Higgs: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that despite those recommendations, some authorities are purchasing more expensive models, and that resentment is felt when police officers are seen patrolling in luxury cars which are not altogether suited to all their duties? Will the Home Secretary consider whether the time has come when a special type of car, specially suited to police duties, might be designed?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: If my hon. Friend will give me details, I will willingly look into the matter.

Mr. Ede: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman see that police cars are not so standard that malefactors will be able to recognise them a great way off?

Air Commodore Harvey: Will my right hon. and learned Friend arrange to have these cars painted with distinctive colours?

Mr. Erroll: Can may right hon. And learned Friend say whether the limit of £1,000 includes Purchase Tax?

Sir D. Maxwell Fyfe: I should think it does, but I will look into that.

REGISTERED DOCK WORKERS (REDUNDANCY)

Mr. Robens: (by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Labour whether he has completed his discussions with the National Dock Labour Board with regard to redundancy and, if so, whether he will make a statement.

The Minister of Labour (Sir Walter Monckton): The Board have now informed me that, following their conversations with me, and after consultation with both sides of the National Joint Council for the Port Transport Industry, they have come to the conclusion that it is essential to take steps to bring the size of the register of dock workers more closely into line with future trade prospects.
They have accordingly prepared a scheme, the details of which I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT, to provide for temporary releases from the main register on a voluntary basis. I am also placing copies of the scheme in the Library.

Mr. Robens: May I ask three short questions? First, does consultation with the trade unions and the Dock Labour Board mean that the trade unions are in agreement with the new scheme? Secondly, have steps been taken, or will they be taken, in view of the fact that this will be a voluntary scheme, carefully to explain the scheme to the rank and file docker? Thirdly, what number does the right hon. and learned Gentleman estimate would be required to go on the dormant register, as I think it is described, to prevent the levy from being increased, or, indeed, to reduce it to more reasonable amounts?

Sir W. Monckton: I am informed by the National Dock Labour Board that the scheme is acceptable to the trade unions concerned. I will bring to the attention of the Board the suggestion made by the right hon. Gentleman, with which I agree, that steps ought to be taken to see that the scheme is carefully explained to those whom it affects. The Board have not given me an estimate—as the right hon. Gentleman knows, it is a matter for them—of the number on the register which they think will be required

or will be approved by them. I take the opportunity which the right hon. Gentleman has given me of pointing out that this is a voluntary scheme and that if it goes well it will be sufficient, no doubt, for the end the Board have in view.

Mr. Stokes: In view of the very serious statement the right hon. and learned Gentleman has made, may I ask whether it means that the Government do not contemplate any real recovery in the export trade?

Sir W. Monckton: No, Sir; my answer means that the National Dock Labour Board, whose task it is to see that the register is kept at a figure which they think correct, think that the register as it now stands is too high. No doubt, in reaching this conclusion, they have formed a view as to the prospects of trade in the immediately foreseeable future.

Sir J. Crowder: Can the Minister say when he thinks the National Dock Labour Board will be able to reduce the percentage of the levy, because he will appreciate that 22½ per cent. is a very heavy tax on the export of our goods, which has to be passed on to the consumer in the end?

Sir W. Monckton: I cannot give a date when the reduction will have an effect on the levy, but I understand that the Board are intending to put the scheme into effect at once and the more successful the scheme is the more will be the effect on the levy.

Mr. Mellish: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that trade unions have had a very difficult job in forming a scheme to the satisfaction of the men concerned and that the best thing in the scheme is that it is voluntary? Secondly, can he give us an idea of the prospects for the coming year as far as employment in the docks is concerned?

Sir W. Monckton: I appreciate that it is difficult to get a scheme which will satisfy those who have to look after the interests of the dock workers and I welcome the effort to make a voluntary scheme go. It is not my scheme, but the scheme of the Board. They are responsible. As to what is to happen in the future, that is a matter on which I cannot give an estimate.

Mr. Mellish: Why not?

Mr. Lee: Will the Minister's Department now increase facilities for training in order that the displaced dockers can become proficient in some other type of job?

Sir W. Monckton: That question gives me the opportunity to say that, if this scheme is to work, the more service the employment exchanges can give the better; and those who are to take advantage of it will do well, before taking their release, to consult the employment exchanges.

Mr. Jay: Are we to understand that not merely have imports and exports fallen since the Government came to power, but that the Government see no prospect of recovery?

Sir W. Monckton: That is certainly not what I was intending to convey. What I was saying was that the Dock Labour Board have formed the view that there are too many people here, who will not be required in the foreseeable future.

Mr. Collick: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say to what extent it is intended to reduce the dock labour force and give the House an assurance that the men who go out of the registered scheme will have first priority to re-enter?

Sir W. Monckton: I cannot give a figure. The House should appreciate that under the Dock Labour Scheme the question of getting the appropriate figure is confided to the Dock Labour Board. Let us not underestimate the difficulty. They have to think of the various ports of entry and exit, the type of commodity, and so forth; and they have to keep something to deal with the peak and make an estimate of what they will require. It is they who have made this voluntary scheme to deal with that. As for the people who will come off the register, when the hon. Member sees the scheme he will observe that opportunity is given to them to come back up to the beginning of 1955, if they wish to do so.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is it not the case that the National Dock Labour Board—

Mr. Keenan: On a point of order. Is it in order, Sir, to ignore those who are concerned in the industry and to call so many non-dockers, who do not know enough about the question?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for me. If right hon. Members of the Front Opposition Bench rise, I am bound, in general, to call them.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is it not the case that the Dock Labour Board consulted the Government as to what the future level of trade was likely to be? If so, will the Minister tell us what advice he gave the Dock Labour Board on that matter?

Sir W. Monckton: No, Sir. I am not prepared to do that. At the request of the Board, I saw them and we exchanged information on a confidential footing. The reason I do not want to start giving away any part of that is that once one starts doing so one is breaching a confidence. It is easier to have these discussions conducted perfectly properly, to use the language of the Press, "off the record."

Mr. Keenan: The reason I want to ask a question is that I have been concerned with this scheme since its inception in 1941. I want to ask the Minister whether he will be careful to see, in getting this proposal accepted without friction in the industry, that he ensures that there is opportunity for those who voluntarily leave to return to the industry? If that is not done, there will be difficulty.

Sir W. Monckton: I can assure the hon. Member that when he sees the scheme he will see that the National Dock Labour Board have been careful to ensure that.

Mr. Isaacs: If the men who accept this temporary withdrawal from the scheme apply to the Ministry for training in other occupations, will every facility be given to them for that training?

Sir W. Monckton: If there are facilities I can give to those who volunteer to accept this proposal, I will do my best to give them.

Mr. Lewis: Is the Minister aware that when I first put this question to him a couple of months ago, he gave figures showing that a fifth of the dockers were unemployed. He said he was hopeful that, as a result of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference that was due to take place, there would be an improvement in the terms of trade and thus an improvement in the employment position in the docks? May I ask him whether


he has now given up all hopes of any good efforts resulting from the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference?

Sir W. Monckton: Certainly not. I entertain great hopes, but it is very difficult for me to tell the National Dock Labour Board exactly what result is likely to come.

Mr. Mellish: If this scheme is to be a success—I understand that it is a voluntary scheme whereby men will give up their registration cards on the understanding that they will get them back at some given time—should the Minister not, in fairness to the men concerned, give an indication very soon of the future prospects of industry, either good or bad?

Following are the details:
The National Dock Labour Board has been increasingly concerned at the large numbers of registered dock workers who, since April,

Period
1951
1952


Average Register
Proving Attendance
Average Register
Proving Attendance


Men
Per cent.
Men
Per cent.


1st Quarter
…
…
…
77,140
3,413
4·4
81,768
9,038
11·1


2nd Quarter
…
…
…
79,379
5,587
7·0
80,751
11,548
14·3


3rd Quarter
…
…
…
81,473
3,683
4·5
79,370
12,854
16·2


4th Quarter
…
…
…
82,359
6,378
7·7
*77,867
16,153
20·7


YEAR
…
…
…
80,088
4,766
6·0
*80,159
11,999
15·0


* Up to 22nd November.

The fluctuations in dock work are so well known that the Board have not deemed it advisable to take any hasty measures to adjust the size of registers, although they imposed a standstill order on recruitment in April last.

A careful survey of the future trend of imports and exports makes it obvious that for some time to come no great improvement in the present level of dock work is to be expected.

After consultation with the National Joint Council for the Port Transport Industry and the Minister of Labour and National Service, the Board feel it essential to take steps to bring the size of the register of dock workers more closely into line with future trade prospects.

The Board have, accordingly, prepared a scheme (details of which follow) to provide for temporary releases from the main register on a voluntary basis. They hope that by this means, it will be possible to bring about

have been proving attendance in excess of requirements for dock work.

This situation may be attributed to two main causes:

(a) During 1951, over 11,000 men had to be recruited to the port registers to handle the increased traffic and ensure the speedy turn round of shipping.
(b) There has, in many important respects, been a substantial recession of the nation's import and export trade, and the level of dock employment in 1951, which was exceptionally high, has not, unfortunately, been generally maintained.

The present position is clearly unsatisfactory to both sides of the port transport industry; from the man's point of view, the smaller amount of work available has generally brought lower earnings; from the employer's point of view, the higher levy (22½ per cent.) brought into force at the beginning of November adds to the substantial burden of production costs at a time when it is becoming increasingly difficult to compete with overseas markets.

The following table, showing the average number of men proving attendance, will indicate the gravity of the situation.

adjustments in the labour force which seem to them essential in the changed circumstances.

By order of the Board,

S. C. PARKIN,

General Manager and Secretary.

4th December, 1952.

9–10, Upper Brook Street,

London, W.1.

RELEASE SCHEME

To encourage men to seek temporary release from the industry to obtain other employment, the national Board has decided to introduce the following scheme.

In order to ensure that an adequate and balanced labour force is retained, the national Board will determine the number of men who may be released in each port area

1. Conditions of Release
With the approval of the local board, a daily worker on the main register may be granted


immediate temporary release on the following conditions:—

(a) His name will be entered on the Dormant Section of the Workers' Register.
(b) if his services are required by the local board during 1953, he will be given the opportunity of returning forthwith to the Live Register.
(c) If he elects to remain in alternative employment during 1953, he will retain his position on the Dormant Register.
(d) He may be recalled by the local board at any time during 1954. If he fails to return to the dock industry within six weeks after his recall, his name will be removed from the Register. The local board may extend this period in exceptional circumstances.
(e) If he is still on the Dormant Register on 1st January, 1955, he will, on application, be reinstated forthwith in the Live Register. If he fails to make application before the 12th February, 1955, his name will be removed from the register permanently and he will forfeit all rights of reinstatement.
(f) A man released under this scheme who decides to leave the industry at any time before 1st January, 1955, is expected to notify the Board at the time.

2. Unemployment Benefit and National Assistance
Any man who takes advantage of this temporary release scheme, or who decides to leave the industry permanently, will be eligible—after the normal qualifying period of three days—for Unemployment Benefit and, in addition, to National Assistance if in need.

3. Holidays
A man granted temporary release will be paid holiday pay due to him.
NOTE.—Any other information relating to this scheme may be obtained from the Board's local manager.

KENYA TRIALS (BARRISTERS' EXCLUSION)

Mr. Snow: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why the Government of Kenya have excluded Mr. Cobina Kessie, a Gold Coast barrister, and Mr. Kola Balogun, a barrister of the Nigerian Supreme Court, from Kenya, to which country they had intended to proceed in order to assist in the defence of Jomo Kenyatta and five others, now on trial.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Oliver Lyttelton): There is no evidence that either of these gentlemen had received instructions by or on behalf of the accused, whose defence is already adequately provided for.

Mr. Snow: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is in fact stating that defence counsel have expressed a desire not to use the services of these two gentlemen, or is he saying that the Kenya Government are now setting themselves up as the arbiters to decide what the composition of the defence counsel shall be?

Mr. Lyttelton: Certainly not. Perhaps I can help to clear the hon. Member's mind if I say, first, that there are three principles involved. First, the Governor of Kenya must reserve the right, on security grounds, of ordinary powers to refuse entry to any person—

Mr. Nally: Defence counsel or not?

Mr. Lyttelton: Certainly, the Governor must preserve that right. Second, there is a considerable danger of this trial, which is an ordinary criminal trial, degenerating into a political forum—

Mr. J. Griffiths: On a point of order. This trial is now pending. May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether it is really in order or proper that any Member of this House should make comments on a trial which is now proceeding?

Mr. Speaker: Comment should not be made on matters which are sub judice. I did not get exactly that impression, but I would ask Members on all sides of the House to remember that it is an old practice of ours that if a trial


is in progress, no comments should be made which could in any way interfere with the course of justice.

Mr. Lyttelton: I have no intention of referring in any way, nor did I do so, to a matter which is sub judice—

Mr. Nally: On a point of order. I made an interjection which the right hon. Gentleman quite clearly heard, in which I asked, "Does that apply to defence counsel?" when the right hon. Gentleman was making the point that even when they are defence counsel the Kenya Government have this right, on security grounds, to refuse them leave to enter. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that there was a great danger of these trials being made a political forum. Further to the point of order raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), in respect of a clear case in which proceedings in accordance with your Ruling are taking place, I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman should have withdrawn the reference to which I raised objection, and to which, with much more authority, objection was raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly from the Opposition Front Bench.

Mr. Speaker: I have already ruled on that point of order. I do not think that anything said by the right hon. Gentleman could possibly interfere with the course of justice.

Mr. S. Silverman: On a point of order. I confess that I have some difficulty in following that Ruling, and I should like some assistance in understanding it. The right hon. Gentleman said that the trial was in danger of degenerating into a political forum. Surely that is quite plainly not merely a statement which could prejudice the defence of the men now on trial, but is a positive attack on the bench who are actually conducting and are in charge of that trial. How, therefore, can it possibly be said that it is in order for the right hon. Gentleman to make a remark of that kind, because if he can make remarks of that kind with regard to a trial now actually in progress, there are many others who would like to make other remarks which would be no more out of order than that.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member puts one interpretation on what was said; I put another. I have no doubt that the

right hon. Gentleman can make it quite clear what was in his mind.

Mr. Hector Hughes: On a point of order. Is the same rule not to be applied to a criminal trial in Kenya as would be applied to a criminal trial at the Old Bailey? Further, if an observation of that kind were made concerning a trial at the Old Bailey, would it not be regarded as improper?

Mr. Speaker: Every case must stand on its own merits. The answer to the point of order put by the hon. and learned Gentleman is that the same rules apply wherever the trials are held.

Mr. Lyttelton: Mr. Lyttelton rose—

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Lyttelton: If the House will listen to what I have to say, I think they may get this matter into proper proportion. I take this matter very seriously, and the last thing I am intending to do is in any way to suggest that the proceedings are not properly taken. It is quite obvious that if counsel not instructed by the defence were allowed to take part in these trials, there would then be a danger—that is what I confined my remarks to—of the trials degenerating into a political forum. I hope I am not out of order in saying that. If I have in any way offended, I naturally apologise. I am pointing out a danger, not a fact.
I say, with a great sense of responsibility, that I do not think that any Member of this House would wish an ordinary criminal trial in which the accused person is accused of having broken the law to degenerate into a white versus black trial or a political forum. Therefore, at the present moment the Government of Kenya will not give visitor permits to counsel who come without instructions for or on behalf of the defence. That is a perfectly clear decision. I must, in all candour, add a third principle. If the number of people instructed from all over the world by or on behalf of the defence should exceed a reasonable number, the Government of Kenya must in their discretion decide whether they can all be admitted or not.

Mr. J. Griffiths: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he agrees that it is of the utmost importance that all the men brought to trial shall have the opportunity of being defended by those


whom they think are best able to defend them? May I ask him, therefore, whether permission will be given to all those who are instructed to appear for the defence to go to Kenya for that purpose?

Mr. Lyttelton: I have already given a very full answer on that matter but I must make the qualification that if an entirely unreasonable number of counsel from all over the world are instructed, some of them may have to be refused, but each case will be judged on its merits. Might I mention that the counsel at present available for Jomo Kenyatta are Mr. Pritt, Mr. Thompson, a West Indian barrister from Tanganyika, Mr. Davies, a Nigerian barrister, Mr. Kopila, a member of the local bar and all the local bar.

Mr. Snow: My question related not only to Jomo Kenyatta but to five others. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware, when he talks of security considerations, that one of the barristers whom I have mentioned in my original question, Mr. Cobina Kessie, was a member of the 1949 Constitutional Reform Committee for the Gold Coast? Furthermore, since when has it been necessary for ordinary members of the Commonwealth, whether white or black, to ask permission to enter another part of the Commonwealth?

Mr. Lyttelton: The hon. Gentleman is trying to read into my statement something which I specifically avoided saying. What I said was that the ordinary security considerations must remain intact whether the person asking for admission happened to be a barrister or not. That is perfectly clear. I made no allegations against either of the two gentlemen who have been mentioned. They were not admitted because they were not instructed by or on behalf of the defence. That is the first thing, and I have made the other two considerations quite clear.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: Quite apart from the trial which is now proceeding, the right hon. Gentleman said that these two gentlemen had been refused permission on security grounds—

Mr. Lyttelton: I am sorry to interrupt, but I am sure the hon. Member does not want to misrepresent me, for he never does. I never said anything of the kind. I said that in these matters three things

must be preserved. The first was that the Governor must have the ordinary right to refuse permission on security grounds. I was most careful not to say that these two gentlemen had been excluded on security grounds. They were excluded because they were not instructed by or on behalf of the defence.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I was putting a supplementary question and was interrupted in the course of it by the Minister. May I conclude the question?

Mr. Speaker: Yes.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: The standing of one of these gentlemen has already been mentioned. Is not the second gentleman the secretary of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons which is at this moment represented in the Executive Council of Nigeria?

Mr. Lyttelton: The hon. Gentleman is still neglecting the point, which is that no one of whatever standing is going to be admitted to Kenya on a visitor's pass as a defence counsel unless he is to take part in the trial—which both gentlemen claimed—and unless he is instructed by the defence. Surely that is perfectly clear.

Mr. Snow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to ask your advice on a constitutional issue. It appears to me, and has appeared to me for some days past, that the Government are—I hesitate to use the word—shuffling away from their responsibility about Kenya by saying that this is a responsibility vested in the Governor. This Parliament is sovereign and is responsible for what goes on in Kenya. Surely it is wrong to say that the discretion lies with the Governor and that we have no responsibility.

Mr. Speaker: I think the position is that, on the spot, by his Letters-Patent, the Governor is responsible for day-to-day decisions, but, on the other hand, a matter affecting, colonial policy can always be raised in this House in the appropriate manner, on the Estimates or on anything else. That is the distinction, if one exists.

Mr. Lyttelton: If it gives the hon. Gentleman the slightest satisfaction, I am willing to say here and now that I accept full responsibility for the three categories which are being applied. But the immediate responsibility is, of course, that of


the Governor, who has been in communication with me, and these are the matters I have approved.

Mr. Paget: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us how somebody takes part in a trial unless he is instructed either by the prosecution or by the defence? Secondly, will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether there is a total embargo on entry into Kenya except for defence counsel, and, if there is not such a total embargo, why are these people excluded?

Mr. Lyttelton: I thought for a moment that the hon. Gentleman was about to contradict some of my arguments. I now understand that he was merely wishing to reinforce them. To begin with, he asked how somebody who is not instructed by either the defence or the prosecution can take part in a trial. That is one of the reasons why these gentlemen have been refused entry. They said they were going to take part in the trial, but they had no grounds for doing so.

Mr. Paget: Is there a general embargo upon everybody who is not a defence counsel?

Mr. Lyttelton: The hon. and learned Gentleman cannot have been listening. I said, first, that the Governor must retain the ordinary right to refuse entry on security grounds; second, that he was not going to give an entry permit to barristers who wished to take part in the trial but were not briefed or instructed by the defence; and, third, if the number of counsel became altogether out of proportion, then he must have the right to judge each case on its merits.

Mr. Paget: I am a barrister. Am I not allowed to go to Kenya in connection with this trial?

Mr. Lyttelton: If the hon. and learned Gentleman is instructed by the defence, we shall be very glad to give him facilities.

Mr. S. Silverman: Will the right hon. Gentleman remember that this is not the only trial in history which, though it takes the form of an ordinary criminal trial, and no doubt is one, nevertheless has political implications and a political background, as frequently happens? Will he further bear in mind that in precisely such a trial it would do the greatest possible harm to the reputation of impartiality of the court if the Executive Government on the spot

took any responsibility whatever or made any kind of intervention of any sort in the free choice by the defendants to be represented by whatever counsel they choose? Therefore, will he undertake to the House that the Governor on the spot will not in any way impede the entry into the territory of any counsel who may be instructed or who may be acceptable to the defence on the spot? The right hon. Gentleman said that the Government would be influenced by the number of counsel engaged. Will he bear in mind that that would be a wholly improper thing for the Executive to do?

Mr. Walker-Smith: Before my right hon. Friend answers that supplementary question—

Mr. Silverman: Why should the right hon. Gentleman not answer the supplementary question?

Mr. Walker-Smith: Before my right hon. Friend answers that lengthy supplementary question, does he appreciate that barristers should not be in any position of preference as compared with other citizens because, apart from any other reason, it would be a clear breach of professional etiquette for any barrister to take any steps which might be interpretated as a soliciting of professional employment?

Mr. Silverman: I hope the hon. Gentleman will remember that when he gets outside.

Mr. Walker-Smith: I will.

Mr. Lyttelton: That was an extremely offensive interjection. I think everybody knows quite well where we stand in this matter. Every reasonable facility will be given to the defence. That may be quite clear, but I should like just to give an answer to the hon. Gentleman's question in the form, perhaps, of a fantastic analogy. Suppose 40 counsel from Harlem and three from Moscow were ininstructed—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"]. This is entirely hypothetical, but it illustrates the point. [Interruption.] I want to make this quite clear. The House asked for an answer and I am trying to give it. I think the Governor would be entitled to exercise his discretion whether he would let all those people in or not.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must pass from this subject.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Attlee: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business for next week?

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:

MONDAY, 8TH DECEMBER—There will be a debate on the Motion relating to the Conduct of the Chairman of Ways and Means.

Second Reading: Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill.

Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution.

TUESDAY, 9TH DECEMBER—Committee stage:

Transport Bill [2nd Allotted Day].

Motions to approve:

Draft Civil Defence (Billeting) Regulations.

Draft Police Pensions Regulations.

Similar Regulations for Scotland.

WEDNESDAY, 10TH DECEMBER—Committee stage:

Transport Bill [3rd Allotted Day].

Motions to approve:

Draft Calf Subsidies (England and Wales and Northern Ireland) Scheme, and a similar Scheme for Scotland.

THURSDAY, 11TH DECEMBER—Committee stage:

Transport Bill [4th Allotted Day].

FRIDAY, 12TH DECEMBER—Private Members' Bills.

Mr. Attlee: I wish to ask two questions. We were to have had a full day for the Second Reading of the Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. It is now proposed to take part of the time for the debate on the Motion relating to the conduct of the Chairman of Ways and Means. Is it proposed to have an extension on that day? Secondly, what is the reason for the indecent haste in rushing the Transport Bill through under a Guillotine on three successive days in the week?

Mr. Crookshank: I appreciate the point of the right hon. Gentleman's

second question. It was certainly not the desire of the Government to have three successive days on the Transport Bill; but as a Motion of censure has been put down on the conduct of the Chairman of Ways and Means, it is essential, and in accordance with the ancient practice of this House, that it should be cleared out of the way at once. That being so, it has not been possible to arrange an intermission between the days on the Transport Bill.

Mr. Attlee: Even if there had been an interval, why three days in one week? What is the urgency about pushing this Bill through? Why this very great haste? A complicated Bill such as this puts a great strain on those who are dealing with it. What is the reason for this pressure?

Mr. Crookshank: The simple reason is the Government's desire to make progress with the Bill. While it may put pressure—and I regret it—upon everybody concerned, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is quite able to cope with it.

Mr. Logan: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill will be considered?

Mr. Crookshank: It will be taken on Monday, and if more time is required, that question can be considered. But the Government must not be blamed for any delay with this Bill. We would have taken it earlier had it not been for these various Motions: indeed, so far as I know, the previous Government might well have gone into the matter.

Mr. Clement Davies: In view of the experience yesterday with the Transport Bill, does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that it would be right to ask the House to review the very short time which has been allotted for the Committee stage? Might I remind him that yesterday time was so short that no explanation was given even of an Amendment which we understood the Government were about to accept? There was no time.

Mr. Crookshank: The time allotted has been accepted by the House on the Report of the Business Committee.

Mr. P. Morris: Will the Leader of the House indicate when he proposes to implement his promise to find a day for the discussion of Welsh affairs?

Mr. Crookshank: As a matter of fact, I hoped that it would be possible this week, let alone next week, but owing to these various intermissions which have come up, I cannot set a day now. However, the promise of the Government to afford a day stands.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan: Would it not be for the convenience and well-being of the House if all the censure Motions on the Paper were taken on one day?

Mr. Crookshank: I had not thought of that.

Mr. Ernest Davies: How can the Leader of the House say that the Minister of Transport is able to cope perfectly well when he has two Departments to look after—the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Civil Aviation? When, as was demonstrated yesterday, the Parliamentary Secretary is only a passenger, how can the right hon. Gentleman possibly say that the Minister of Transport can devote three days to business in the House of Commons?

Mr. Lindgren: Is the Leader of the House aware that the Minister of Transport has this week to consult with the trade union movement about aspects of the Transport Bill? With that discussion taking place this week, is it fair that three days should be devoted to consideration of the Bill next week? Should not the Minister be given full time for consulation and consideration of all the questions which might arise from the consultations which will take place with the trade union movement?

Mr. Gaitskell: Is it the intention of the Government to make a statement to

the House at the conclusion of the Commonwealth Conference and, if so, will the Leader of the House ensure that we have time to debate that statement before the Christmas Recess?

Mr. Crookshank: I think that we had better see when the Conference ends and what sort of statement comes from it; but perhaps I ought to say that it is our hope that we shall not have to sit during Christmas week.

Mr. Gaitskell: Are we to understand that, despite the fact that the Government have spoken of this conference as the most important for 20 years, they expect the results to be so insignificant that they cannot find time for us to debate them immediately?

Mr. Crookshank: Nothing of the kind follows from what I said. It is not always wise to take the morrow of any great event as the suitable time for discussing it in detail.

Mr. Jay: Do not the Government think that it would be better to give the House time to discuss some of our real economic problems rather than to force through unwanted and irrelevant Bills?

Mr. Logan: Further to my question about the business for Monday, I should like to know whether there is to be a specified time limit for the business? If so, will the right hon. Gentleman be able to say at what time the Motion of censure debate will start and finish and when the debate on the Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill will begin?

Mr. Crookshank: That matter could be discussed. I cannot possibly say how long a time the Opposition require in which to debate the conduct of the Chairman of Ways and Means. My own view would be that a very short time indeed would be quite adequate.

DEFENCE PRODUCTION PROGRAMME

The Prime Minister (Mr. Winston Churchill): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I will now make a statement on the defence production programme.
The House is already aware, from statements which the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I made in the debate on the economic position last July, that during the past months the Government have been engaged upon a thorough review of the defence programme in all its aspects. This review, which is still in progress, must of course take fully into account the results of the Ministerial meeting of the North Atlantic Council to be held in 10 days' time.
Our conclusions will be fully set out in the Defence White Paper for 1953, which, in accordance with previous practice, will be issued in February. However, certain decisions have been made affecting the defence production programme which must be put into effect now if they are to produce the results desired. I have therefore thought it right to inform the House at this stage of the broad effect of these decisions.
We made it clear at the Lisbon meeting of the Atlantic Council that our ability to carry out our programme in full, and to make our contribution to the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, depended on the solving of our financial and economic problems and especially the balance of payments problem. This was well understood and accepted by our Allies.
In spite of the successful measures which the Government have taken to strengthen our financial position, these problems are not yet solved, and this is—I will not say a decisive—but at any rate an important factor in determining the magnitude of our defence effort. It must be remembered that our effort has to provide not only for the defence of these islands and for our contribution to common defence within N.A.T.O., but also for our world-wide commitments where we are heavily extended.
The defence budget for this year which was presented in a White Paper last February, amounted to £1,462 million,

of which something under £600 million was for production. To this must be added certain supplementary estimates to which the Chancellor recently referred.
If the three-year re-armament programme drawn up by the late Government had been carried through in full, expenditure on defence at the end-1951 prices would have been in the present financial year over £1,650 million, and would have risen in 1953 to more than £1,800 million. Within these totals, expenditure on production would have been over £725 million this year and over £850 million next year. Moreover, much of this increased burden would have fallen on the engineering industry, on which we depend so much for the vitally needed expansion of our export trade.
In the light of these considerations, the Government have come to the conclusion that we must prevent any substantial rise above this year's high level of expenditure on defence production.
Some curtailment must therefore now be made. This will to some extent involve the cancellation or modification of contracts already placed. [HON. MEMBERS: "More unemployed."] The firms concerned will be fully informed of these changes by the production Departments.
The reductions will so far as possible be brought about by spreading deliveries of equipment over a longer period. The effect will be to prevent further increases in the amount of labour and materials used for defence production rather than to reduce the total of these resources now devoted to this purpose. It will, however, not be possible to solve the problem entirely by spreading deliveries forward into future months or years.
This applies in particular to aircraft. We shall somewhat reduce the production of types now in service, but we shall continue to press forward as rapidly as possible with the introduction of the newer and still more advanced types. Moreover, in view of the progress which has taken place in the medium bomber, we are able to curtail to some extent earlier plans for re-equipment with light bombers.
The changes which we are making will not have any serious effect on industry as a whole, but they may well cause local difficulties. Happily these difficulties are


being partially alleviated by the orders we are receiving for defence equipment from our N.A.T.O. Allies, the Commonwealth and other friendly countries. These will not only contribute to the security of the free world, but will also help to maintain the war potential of British industry and help the balance of our exports.
I should like those firms, large and small, who have given such ready help by taking on re-armament work when they already had full order books, to know how much Her Majesty's Government valued their co-operation, and to understand with what regret we shall now have to ask them to adjust their plans. I am sure that they will not be deterred by any disappointment of this kind from continuing to do their utmost, whether as employers or workers, to provide the Fighting Services with the equipment they need.
These decisions have been taken in the knowledge that it is on a satisfactory development of our economic position, and particularly our balance of payments, that the maintenance of our future defence effort must depend. The decisions, of course, in no way imply any weakening in Her Majesty's Government's resolve to carry through a defence programme which will enable this country to defend itself, to fulfil its obligations overseas, and to take its full share, militarily and industrially, in the common effort of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Mr. Shinwell: The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of an exhaustive review undertaken in recent months by the Government, but he will probably agree that, in spite of that exhaustive review of the defence programme, particularly in the sphere of production, he has not said much that he did not say some months ago on this subject, in particular, when he spoke about according priority to exports rather than to defence. In the absence of a White Paper, which we shall not have in our possession until February of next year, and for the purpose of clarification of the statement which the right hon. Gentleman has made, perhaps I might ask him two, or at the most three, questions for the purpose of elucidation?
The first is this. Will this curtailment in defence production mean that those firms which will have to forgo orders already placed will have an opportunity

of producing for export, and, if so, what are the Government's plans in that connection? That is the first question. The second is this.

The Prime Minister: May I answer the first one now?

Mr. Shinwell: Yes, if the right hon. Gentleman so desires.

The Prime Minister: Every effort is made to what I might call dovetail these arrangements and to utilise labour not immediately needed for defence purposes for the export trade, but there are some gaps which cannot be immediately filled.

Mr. Shinwell: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for replying to the point which I have put to him, but it seems to me to require further elucidation, because if, as the right hon. Gentleman will agree, we are to avoid further unemployment in the country, and particularly amongst skilled and semi-skilled workers, it will be necessary to arrange speedily for a switch-over from defence production to the production of goods for civilian consumption. I think the right hon. Gentleman should afford some indication of what the Government intend, and not rely merely on the possibility of the dovetailing of different aspects of production.
I wish to ask him a further question, which is whether, in fact, the Government are going to spend more in this year than was contemplated by the Labour Government last year when they produced their defence programme; whether this Government are curtailing expenditure on defence production or whether they are increasing it? I ask that question—I have said already that, in the absence of a White Paper, we require clarification—because the right hon. Gentleman has spoken about the need for a re-arrangement of the defence production programme because of increases in the price level. Is it, therefore, the increase in the price level that is retarding the defence programme, or is it some other reason?
Finally, will the right hon. Gentleman answer this question? He said in the course of his statement that only £600 million was to be spent on production, which means that two-thirds of the Estimate is to be spent on manpower and maintenance. Will he not agree that, if there is to be a curtailment of defence


production, there ought to be a corresponding curtailment of the manpower position?

The Prime Minister: In regard to the second of the three questions which the right hon. Gentleman has put to me, it is a fact that, if the three-year re-armament programme drawn up by the late Government had been carried through in full, considerably heavier Estimates would have to be met by Parliament than those which we shall now present. One of the important causes of that is, of course, the rise in prices, but it is not the only cause. The cause is that, as production gets on the move, there is an acceleration and expansion, and very often things are achieved on a somewhat larger scale at an earlier moment than perhaps was estimated for; but, broadly speaking, if we had gone on with that programme which we found on arriving in office, there would have been considerably heavier expenses to meet, and it might have affected the balance of payments adversely.
But to say that is not to pass a censure, or indeed a criticism, on our predecessors, because I have not the slightest doubt that had they had to deal with the situation which presents itself today, they would have made the necessary adjustments and curtailments without violating in any way the principle of our effort to the utmost limit of our power, short of going bankrupt.
The other question I was asked was about manpower. Of course, the bulk of the expenditure is for maintenance and preparing the troops, and for pay, food, clothes, movements—everything. I certainly think that manpower should be reviewed with a searching eye, especially manpower which does not take a direct combatant form. That has been done and is being done as far as possible, but it should not be thought that with the present position in Korea, in Malaya, in the Canal Zone and on the Continent, to say nothing of this country, any definite large-scale reduction in the numbers of the troops on which we depend can be effected without casting away some of the absolutely necessary obligations which we have to fulfil.

Mr. Shinwell: May I put one final question to the right hon. Gentleman?

I am not proposing to enter into a discussion on the points he has raised; we can leave that for a forthcoming defence debate. But can the right hon. Gentleman say whether, when the Government produce this White Paper and as a result of the review to be undertaken by N.A.T.O. in the next 10 days, the Government will be in a position to inform the House what the actual costs of occupation in Germany will be, having regard to the review that will be undertaken?

The Prime Minister: I am not sure of that. I do not think there can be any debate on this before Christmas, but when the White Paper is produced we come into the whole process of examination of Estimates, and not only of Estimates of the Defence Vote, which carries with it the general discussion of the whole field of public defence.

Mr. A. Henderson: Can the Prime Minister state the percentage reduction in the projected front-line strength of the Royal Air Force under the three-year programme which will follow as a result of the Government policy to curtail aircraft orders?

The Prime Minister: No, I could not do so in detail without notice; I would not be able to remember at this moment. But sometimes it is better to slow down the production of weapons which are being superseded by newer and better types in order to be more ahead a little later on. The fact that we have felt able to do that indicates, on the whole, that we do not think that the worst emergencies with which we might be faced have approached any nearer to us.

Mr. H. Wilson: Will the right hon. Gentleman say over what period he expects the original £4,700 million programme will now be spread? Will it be four and a half, five, or six years, or what period? Secondly, will he say how much increase he thinks can be possible in the engineering exports and in capital investment for home industry as a result of the diversion to those purposes of capacity previously earmarked for armaments?

The Prime Minister: These are difficult questions to answer on the spur of the moment. The original £4,700 million programme carried with it three years of maintenance. Now it is spread over four years, and we have advanced in time, so


it is spread over four, and, in part over five years in which there are new maintenance charges running each year, and, in addition, there is the rise in prices.

Mr. Shinwell: It is more than £4,700 million?

The Prime Minister: I think I said some time ago that it would be £5,300 million at the value then prevailing, but it is more than that now, and if we take a fourth year it may be well over £6,000 million. I do not think we can be reproached with not taking a serious view of the financial aspect.

Mr. Bellenger: Taking into account the reply given by the right hon. Gentleman to my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) about manpower, and also in view of the estimates which have been sent to the N.A.T.O. Council and which will be discussed in 10 days' time, does the right hon. Gentleman's statement mean that we shall fall short of the undertaking concerning manpower which we gave to the Lisbon Conference?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. As I have said, we always guard ourselves upon the point of solvency and capacity to produce, because these estimates were originally produced to meet a great emergency. It had to be done very quickly indeed, but now it comes home in much more detail. As far as manpower is concerned, I can undertake that we shall not call up a single man who is not absolutely necessary for the discharge of our obligations, but I think that at this critical juncture above all others, for Great Britain, if we, instead of setting an example as far as we can in terms of service to the Continental Powers, were to make a violent reduction in our manpower or in our terms of service, the result could not be estimated merely by any reduction in our own strength. It might bring about an almost complete collapse of the great organisation which grew up under the previous Administration and for which its

leading Members have the responsibility and the credit.

Mr. W. Edwards: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what effect this is going to have on the Admiralty's re-armament programme? If he is not able to give that answer today, can he let us know through what Department we may be able to get it in the near future?

The Prime Minister: Oddly enough, and without further investigation, I should imagine it would be the Admiralty itself. It always used to be. All these matters will require and deserve the searching attention of the House next year when the Estimates are presented for each of the Service Departments. Also, I can say now that, once the White Paper has been laid, be shall be anxious to afford the fullest facility for a debate on the subject which, however one looks at it, ought to be a non-party affair.

Major Legge-Bourke: Can my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister give an assurance now that the proposed alterations in the programme will not in any way impair the equipment of our Forces now fighting in Korea and Malaya or the supply of adequate weapons with which to carry out their difficult and arduous task?

The Prime Minister: Certainly. They are actually engaged in combat in both those theatres, and obviously they have the first claim on the supply of munitions of war.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must go on with the business of the day.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Might I ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker? Can you tell us what opportunity there is in this House for hon. Members who are against the re-armament programme and who are unable to ask any question because ex-Ministers who favour re-armament take up the time of the House?

Mr. Speaker: I bear that point in mind and I always endeavour to give the hon. Member his fair share.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (CENSURE MOTION)

4.30 p.m.

Mr. C. R. Attlee: I beg to move,
That this House regrets that Her Majesty's Government is dealing with the Business of the House incompetently, unfairly and in defiance of the best principles of Parliamentary democracy and the national interest, and records the view that this is in part brought about by the efforts of Ministers to force through measures, unrelated to the needs of the nation, for which they have no adequate support in Parliament or the country.
The immediate cause of this Motion arises out of the events of last week and they have been powerfully reinforced by happenings this week. It is not my intention to try to fix the whole of the blame for these unfortunate incidents either on the Leader of the House or on the Chief Whip. The Leader of the House sometimes seems to me to be more sinned against than sinning. When he could not answer questions about business, perhaps he had not received the orders from up above. The Chief Whip is in some respects like a regimental sergeant-major carrying out orders.
Let us look now at those events. The Government failed to keep a House and lost a day, and the Leader of the House thereupon demanded that the House should do two days' work in one, which involved sitting through the night. The reason given was the need for getting the Address on the Defence Regulations and Emergency Powers up to the other place in time before they expired. That reason illustrates the point of the Motion—the mismanagement of business by the Government and their lack of consideration for this House.
Let us look, first of all, at the immediate instance. The debate on the Iron and Steel Bill was interrupted by an Adjournment for a matter of urgent public importance. I do not think that any Member of this House will complain of that. It is the right of hon. Members to raise matters of urgent public importance. Indeed, it is the duty of hon. Members, and particularly of the Opposition, to see that where these matters arise they are dealt with. That was a serious matter—the position in Kenya. Under our rules the debate on

the Iron and Steel Bill was then to have continued for another three hours, from ten o'clock until one o'clock. It did not continue so long because the Government failed to keep a House.
Let us be quite clear on this. It is not the duty of the Opposition to keep a House for the Government. It is the duty of the Government to keep a House. It is their interest to get their Bills through and certainly not the business of the Opposition to facilitate a Measure which they oppose. We were not interested in its passing, but, it seems to us, nor were a majority of the Conservative Party, because there were fewer than 20 of them, I am informed, anywhere about the premises of the House of Commons. There is no real reason why, on an important matter of this kind the Opposition should be expected to keep a House for the Government and to talk to empty benches.
I have no doubt that it was a bitter moment for the Prime Minister and for the Minister of Supply when they learned that their followers did not bother to support one of their chief Measures of the Session and one of the chief Measures mentioned in the Queen's Speech. I am sure that the Chief Whip must have been disillusioned. He obviously thought that there was no need to take any particular precaution. He thought that on the Iron and Steel Bill all these enthusiastic Members would be crowding to support the Government. It was a very remarkable event. I have had some time in this House now, and I can remember counts-out on Private Members' Bills, but I do not remember a major Bill introduced by the Government being counted out. It must have made Lord Margesson turn in the other place.
I have had great difficulty in finding a precedent of any kind. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister knows that when the matter was raised I could get nothing near in the way of a precedent. I had to go back to the frequent occasions when the Conservatives brought about a suspension of the House because of the noise that they were making during the administration of the Liberal Government. I could not find an exact parallel. One would have thought that the Leader of the House would have come here in sackcloth and apologized, But no. First the Government put down


a Motion to try and take the time of the next day and go straight on. They found that they could not do that. Then they took two days' business in one.
The right action would have been either to withdraw this unwanted Iron and Steel Bill or to postpone it. There was no hurry about it, after all. The Government waited a long time before they introduced it. Instead, the House was made to suffer purely through the mismanagement and incapacity of the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip and the somnolent desires of hon. and right hon. Members opposite. The result was that very important business had to be taken late at night.
I am bound to say that the time that the Government lost was most usefully spent, because instead of coming on for discussion late at night certain food Orders came on in the light of day. We were therefore able to deal very fully in the light of day with the failure of the Government to keep one of the promises on which they were returned to power—the promise of a reduction in the cost of living.
Another great talking point on the other side of the House has always been the evil of Orders, Regulations, delegated legislation and all the rest of it—put shortly by the Prime Minister as his desire to "set the people free." We always understood that these Orders, Defence Regulations and the rest were part of the fetters on the people that the right hon. Gentleman was going to strike off when he came to power. As a matter of fact, so far from the spate of Orders having fallen, I understand that it has increased during the time of the present Government.
This was by all admission vitally important business. Let us see what the present Leader of the House said about this matter. On 23rd October, 1950, the present Leader of the House was very severe on my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) who was then Leader of the House He said:
… this is 23rd October; … I say that the Government are very much to blame for not having gone into these matters much earlier, instead of at the last minute throwing that at us, …
Well, they threw it at us a month later, in November. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say:

… all parties of the House of Commons, … ought to serve notice on the Administration—I do not know what Administration will be here in 12 months' time but … we expect the Administration to make a very firm review of these orders, rules and regulations.… If there is no change at all in 12 months' time, then the House of Commons will be very critical of the Administration."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd October, 1950; Vol. 478, c. 2515–18.]
We therefore have the support of the right hon. Gentleman in this Motion of censure, because 24 months have passed and during part of the time the Labour Government were reviewing these Regulations, and then another Administration came in, and when the Home Secretary explained that they had not had time to go into these very fully we realised that they did need a bit of time. But they have had their 12 months and they had the benefit of the period before that, and they have done nothing about it. Nothing has been done in sorting out these Orders, and so far from bringing the matter forward in good time, we had it thrown at us in November.
Why could not this have been done earlier? There was ample time to do it in 1951. I quite agree that the Government lost time through the demise of the Crown, but their main proposals for that first Session were not very extensive. The principal Measures were the Iron and Steel Bill, which was not introduced; secondly, the Transport Bill, which was not introduced; thirdly, the Monopolies Bill, which we have heard nothing about; and fourthly, the review of Emergency Powers. Not one of them was dealt with in that Session.
After all, hon. Members opposite had six years to think over matters. They have certainly thought of Regulations for a long time. They had ample time to think what their policy was. The fact is that when they came in, they had absolutely nothing ready and had to go off on a holiday. They talked a great deal about the repeal of the Iron and Steel Act. They talked about the repeal of the Transport Act. But it is quite obvious that they had not worked out any policy.
Indeed, a year has gone by and we are still only dealing with those Bills. True, in the Gracious Speech it was announced that they were going to legislate, and in that way they gave the


greatest possible uncertainty to these two great industries; but, having nothing ready, they had to let the time go on, until they bring it in now, and even now no one quite knows where they stand. Surely in that time they could have reviewed the Emergency Powers. The Monopolies Bill is a non-starter; that has gone altogether. The Transport Bill has a very mixed and curious history.
Let us see what they were doing meanwhile, instead of bringing forward these Measures and dealing with this important matter of striking off the fetters which the right hon. Gentleman said kept us all in chains. Instead of freeing the people, they were trying to abolish the free public house in the new towns. Tied houses, not freedom, was what they were interested in. They wasted time, upstairs, and downstairs, on something not even mentioned in the Gracious Speech. For some unknown reason the brewers had precedence.
A great deal more time was lost by the Prime Minister's incursion into the question of railway fares, which resulted in the sacrifice of the Minister of Transport. There is a curious ritual in this business on the part of the party opposite. Whenever they deal with transport there always has to be a sacrifice, and they sacrificed a National-Liberal Minister.

Mr. John Maclay: I was foolish enough to over-estimate my capacity for work. It is entirely my own fault and nobody else's.

Mr. Attlee: We all sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman was terribly worried—[An HON. MEMBER: "He was ill."] I know, and he was worried. I remember very well Mr. Pybus wanting to resign and he was attacked by the hon. Members for Croydon, East (Sir H. Williams) and Torquay (Mr. C. Williams). It is a kind of ritual with the Conservative Party to sacrifice.
Then we had the unnecessary television business. We then had a wretched little National Health Bill, and then we had an abortive Paper on Transport. All this time was wasted through the incapacity of this Government. [An HON. MEMBER: "You are wasting it now."] That is an Opposition matter. "The Times" put this matter very gracefully, if rather sardonically, in an admirable leader

—[Interruption.] I will give way if the hon. Member wants to say something. If he does not want to have a solo, perhaps he will cease joining me in a duet.
I thought "The Times" put this very well in a leader yesterday, reviewing the various parts of the Bill. It said:
… the section which has been least altered since the first sketch and which has therefore not yet benefited from the Government's progressive enlightenment and growing touch with reality over transport.
I thought that was putting it very kindly. The Government produced a terrible White Paper which was condemned by every expert on the subject; then they produce the Bill, and they are now having to force this Bill through the House under the Guillotine because it will not bear examination. Even then, the Government could not bring forward these important Regulations until the last moment, at a time when we had other business which had to be got through by a Time-table, such as the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. All this shows a complete lack of consideration for the House.
Yet two years ago, when in opposition, the Lord Privy Seal was very solicitous on behalf of the back benchers' rights of dealing with matters of this sort. He does not seem to mind at all now. It can all go through at night. It seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman is becoming very irritated at any opposition. He introduced a Guillotine Motion, and when asked why, he said, "Because there is opposition on the Second Reading." I have known a great many Bills introduced into this House with opposition of every kind, but I have never known anyone to be so sensitive as to say "Because this Bill is opposed we have to have the Guillotine."
The fact is that the Government know that this is a thoroughly bad Bill, promoted in the interests of a few would-be profit makers, and utterly irrelevant to the real needs of this country. If the Steel Bill and the Transport Bill were really matters of import and vital to the life of this country, they would have been brought in at once. They are only brought in now because the Government have got to pay their debts. This is only one instance of general mismanagement.
One of the reasons business goes so badly in this House is the fact that a very high proportion of the Cabinet Ministers,


the responsible Ministers, are in another place. We only have the Lord Privy Seal, of the Ministers who have not got heavy Departmental duties, in this House. To start with, he had to deal with health, so they relieved him of that. The ordinary custom in this House is to have a certain number of senior Ministers to assist. Instead of that, we have a collection of Departmental Ministers, many of whom are under overlords in another place, and Under-Secretaries. We are left with practically nobody but the Home Secretary.
One does not expect the Prime Minister to be here for the ordinary business of the House; the Foreign Secretary and the Colonial Secretary are abroad most of the time; the Chancellor of the Exchequer has his finance; the Minister of Labour is new to the House; the President of the Board of Trade is very inexperienced, and the Minister of Housing and Local Government is going all round the country talking about housing.

Mr. Bernard Braine: Yes, but he is also building the houses you failed to build.

Mr. Attlee: The hon. Member does not quite realise that his right hon. Friend's orders are to deal with housing. I am dealing with the fact that there is nobody else in the House to deal with business. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman did not get the point correctly.
We admire the Home Secretary for his ability and his unfailing courtesy, but I do not know how much time he spends in the Home Office, because he is always here. He is less a Minister than an able counsel with a continual retainer on behalf of the Government on every subject. He is brought in to rescue Ministers of all kinds, to wind up debates. He holds a great number of briefs. But that is not the way to treat this House. There should be an adequate number of responsible Cabinet Ministers in the House of Commons, as the other Ministers are not really fully responsible. They are acting only under the orders of their masters in another place.
That is one of the reasons the business goes so badly in this House. Throughout the whole of this Government's proceedings one finds quite an extraordinary incoherence. Policies put forward by one Minister do not agree with those put forward

by another. The Minister of Housing and Local Government—if I may mention him again—is very keen that people should be able to buy their own houses; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer promptly raises the interest rates on houses. The Minister of Labour wants to keep the wage level steady, so the Chancellor of the Exchequer takes off the food subsidies. The Prime Minister has to dash down to the House to intervene because his heart is bleeding for travellers who have to pay too much—and the Chancellor of the Exchequer raises the price of petrol and fuel oil.
In these days the Government are showing themselves to be increasingly dictatorial. Now they are trying to rush through this ill-conceived Transport Bill. We have been told today that we are to sit on it for three days next week. Everybody knows that under the Guillotine—as was said by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Leader of the Liberal Party—this Bill is not being properly discussed. The Committee did their best to allocate fairly the amount of time allotted, but there was not enough time. It is perfectly clear to hon. Members on both sides of the House that this is a Bill which causes a good deal of feeling among people who do not support the party on these benches and that there are a great many points to be made. But it is not being adequately discussed. It is being rushed through by means of the Guillotine. The number of days allocated to it are far too few.
Then we have the dictatorial attitude of the Chief Whip on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. I have sat through a great many discussions on that Bill. In my young days in the House it almost always took all night. The reason for that is simple. First, it contains a number of subjects, and secondly, because it carries on for a year a number of Bills, the fact that they are only carried on for a year means that there is some doubt whether or not they should be prolonged. Therefore, they always have to be looked at in the light of changing circumstances. That was being done when the Chief Whip moved the Closure most ruthlessly, without any adequate discussion. He strolled in—[An HON. MEMBER: "Why did not you vote against it?"] I shall have to explain because I do not think the hon. Member has understood.
The proceedings of this House do not consist merely of counting heads. If that were so, we should be beaten every time. The point is that in a debate what is in the heads comes out, and that is where we score. The hon. Member reminds me of one of those curious Members who were washed in on the high tide of 1931 and who, after he had been here for a week or so, turned to one of our Members and said, "When are we going to do any business?" Our Member said, "What do you mean?" The new Member said, "I am referring to all this talking." Our Member said, "Do not you realise that this is a Parliament and its business is talking?" and the new Member said, "I never thought of that."
The whole point of the debate on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill is to see that there is a proper discussion of whether those laws should be continued and that matters arising out of them are adequately discussed. That is why, on that Bill, the effective debate takes place in the Committee stage, in which the Schedule is discussed. That Schedule is not like other Schedules. In effect each one of the items in it is a separate Clause, needing discussion.
It is extremely rare to have the Closure moved on a Schedule. I believe that the last occasion was in the dying days of Mr. Balfour's Government. Only the Prime Minister will remember that. It was when they were hurrying up to be gone, and they got rid of it in that way then. But this Schedule dealt with very important matters. There were Bills which particularly concerned Scottish affairs. Scottish Members had been sitting here for hours wanting to debate them and then in strode the Chief Whip, with a black look at his hon. Friends, and moved the Closure. That is not treating the House properly.
It is a curious action on the part of a party that have been protesting that they are so keen on democracy and the rights of the subject—a party who are always quoting books, written by learned authorities, on the decay of Parliament and all the rest of it. Here they are, bludgeoning this House to get some worthless Bills through and preventing the proper discussion—both on the Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Act and on the Expiring Laws Continuance

Bill—of matters of intense importance to the people.
I claim that we have every right to move this Motion. It is not right that people should treat this House as if it were a rubber stamp, just to pass things through. Therefore, our Motion is directed not just against two Members but against the whole misconceived policy of this Government—their failure to concentrate on essentials and their pressing forward at this time, in defiance of all precedent, with a heavy Guillotine on Measures which are not wanted in the least by the country or, judging from their attendance, by hon. Members, opposite.

5.0 p.m.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Winston Churchill): I have today to deal with a Motion of censure, and therefore I hope I shall be pardoned if I do not confine myself entirely to the uncontroversial methods which I usually practise. Let me in the first place begin by offering my congratulations to the Leader of the Opposition who left the sharp, harsh language of the Motion behind and launched out into a general parade of all those topics which are usually a subject of discussion in our constituencies. Taking all that he said together, one must feel that he made a scathing denunciation of the Government, and I earnestly hope that that may be considered sufficient and that he will not be left at the post, as it were, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) resumes his role of virtuous indignation reinforced with the abuse for which he is celebrated.
It is a remarkable fact that, if we look at the terms of the Motion, the first occasion for 10 months in which the Opposition have moved a formal Motion against the present Government is on terms of a purely technical matter in the conduct of the House, and which has no bearing whatever upon the daily lives of the people or the march of events. No censure is urged on the manner in which the Government conduct their affairs in these anxious times either at home or abroad, and Her Majesty's Government may congratulate themselves upon the success of their administration. The country has no reason to rejoice on the feeble, barren absence of constructive thought on the part of the Opposition.

Mr. Attlee: May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that only a few weeks ago we were on the debate on the Queen's Speech. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to cover the ground we amply covered then.

The Prime Minister: I should have thought that, in view of the interval that has occurred, the right hon. Gentleman might well have thought of some variants to the general indictment which we all remember he threw upon us then. I am quite sure the right hon. Gentleman did his best, and he had every reason to do his best. We shall have the opportunity of seeing how this works out before we get to the end of the day. I should like to look back a little on the course of events in order rightly to judge this Motion on the Paper. On Tuesday last we were expecting a strong, vigorous debate upon the Steel Bill. At the end of Questions, when we were about to take this important discussion, the Adjournment of the House was moved about a tragic incident in Kenya, and, after some vehement discussion, this was permitted by Mr. Speaker.
I was sorry that the Opposition should have concentrated upon this single point in the difficult and harrowing scene in East Africa. I thought I made a fair and reasonable offer to the Opposition, namely, to give them a whole day for the debate on East Africa. It would have protected the Second Reading of the Steel Bill from violent interruption, which would have been so much better than focusing public attention by debate and by, as it then seemed, a Division on party lines upon the action of two or three young police officers who, with only 20 native police, were confronted with 2,000 tribesmen with long knives. Upon the nerve and decision of these officers at a critical moment much depended. Had they not acted with resolution, the whole detachment of police would have been torn to pieces, even if they had fired every bullet they possessed. When there is such a state of affairs as exists in Kenya, it would be most dangerous to undermine the confidence of subordinate officers.

Mr. R. T. Paget: Is a discussion of events in Kenya in order on this Motion?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): I thought the opening

speech was fairly wide. I did not stop it, and I do not see any reason to stop this now.

The Prime Minister: I am only discussing this particular episode in Kenya in order to draw the attention of the House to what actually happened before the proceedings on Tuesday night. I am giving the House my own feelings at the time. When there is such a state of affairs as in Kenya, I thought myself that, if there were a debate and Division on this matter, we might rupture and break the nerve of these young people, and we might well find that great disasters and bloodshed would follow. Not only might there be a massacre, but the whole structure of Government might be weakened. All the settlers throughout this scattered country would be in mortal peril. [Interruption.] Hon. Members opposite will give me credit for not being afraid of interruptions or noise. It even would be much easier to be shouted down continually or booed down, because I have not the slightest doubt I could obtain publicity for any remarks I wish to make, even if they are not audible in the House.
It was this desire to debate the matter which made us make what I thought was a generous offer of a whole day's debate. However, the Opposition persisted and obtained the Adjournment. Then we came to the Steel Bill—I am showing the background in which the count was sought—which we have been told was so important—a terrible Bill of reaction. But what happened? There could have hardly been a greater contrast between the House excited in the arguments about the Adjournment on the Kenya episode and the scene at the Second Reading of the Steel Bill. Not only had the debate been wantonly disturbed and interrupted by the Opposition—

Mr. John Hynd: Am I correct in understanding that the debate was interrupted in order to discuss Kenya because the Chair considered that that was an urgent matter of vital public importance, and in that case is not the right hon. Gentleman criticising the Chair?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: It was not I who gave the decision, and I do not think the right hon. Gentleman was criticising the Chair.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: The right hon. Gentleman has just said in the hearing of all of us that the interruption to which he refers, namely, the debate on the special adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9, was a wanton interruption. If it were a wanton interruption, the reflection would not be upon my right hon. Friends but upon the Chair which allowed the wanton Motion to be moved.

Mr. James Griffiths: Mr. James Griffiths (Llanelly) rose—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Let me take one at a time. It is the House that gives permission.

Hon. Members: No.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Further to that point of order. Is it not a fact that on that day, when I moved the Adjournment of the House and Mr. Speaker accepted it, the Colonial Secretary himself said the matter was important? He made a statement to the House on that Tuesday, in reply to a Private Notice Question, because it was of urgent public importance.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think that that is a different incident.

The Prime Minister: I am certainly not making any reflection at all upon the Chair.

Mr. Silverman: Then withdraw the word "wanton."

The Prime Minister: I will not withdraw the word "wanton" or any other word I use.

Mr. Silverman: On a point of order. The right hon. Gentleman has said that he will not withdraw the word "wanton"—[HON. MEMBERS: "Under the hon. Gentleman's instructions."]—although it is perfectly clear that, under the Ruling you have just given, Sir, the word "wanton" could only be an attack on the Chair. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] There is only one occupant of the Chair, and I understand it to be you, Sir, and not the dozen or so answering Members opposite. The point I put to you is this, that to call that Motion or debate "wanton" is a reflection on the Chair, without whose permission the Motion could not have been moved, and if that is so, I suggest to you that it is your duty in the Chair in this House to keep every Member of the House strictly

within the rules of order even if it be the Prime Minister himself, and not to discriminate between Members. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Therefore, I say it is your duty—I submit to you with respect—to call upon the Prime Minister to withdraw the offending word.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: If my duty is at fault, it will be discussed on Monday. I do not want to say anything about that now. In order to raise a Motion under Standing Order No. 9, a Member has to get the leave of the House, which he got, and that is all I have to say on the matter.

Mr. Attlee: Further to that Ruling. It is quite true that he has to get the leave of the House, but it is Mr. Speaker who says whether it is a matter of definite urgent public importance. That is a Ruling as to the nature of the subject.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is how it arises, but I do not see that "wanton" is necessarily directed to that.

Mr. F. Beswick: Do I understand it to be your Ruling, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that Mr. Speaker would give permission for a debate in this House which can be properly described as a "wanton" subject?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Mr. Speaker allowed the matter because it was urgent, public and definite. The Prime Minister did not use the word against Mr. Speaker at all. He used it against the subject.

Mr. Jack Jones: Not only did he refuse to withdraw the word "wanton," but the Prime Minister went on to say that nor would he withdraw any other word he used. May I have an assurance that, while we on these back benches are confined to the rules of the House, the Prime Minister shall not have rules of his own?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: If the Prime Minister uses un-parliamentary words I shall stop him.

The Prime Minister: I hope I shall be allowed a measure of free speech. I thought it was perfectly understood that the Chair interpreted the rules of the House. Those who put these rules into motion, and those who, when opportunity is given to them, cry for action—they are the ones who take the actual responsibility. And it is to them, and to them


alone, the word "wanton" applies. I have got a lot to say, and I shall have to keep the House several hours if we go on at this rate. Nothing will induce me to be frustrated in unfolding the argument—not even sham points of order.
Let me recall the House to the point I had reached in the argument. I said that the Adjournment of the House was given, that the debate on the Iron and Steel Bill, which, we had been told, was very important indeed—[HON. MEMBERS: "Who said so?"]—was to be interrupted at 7 p.m. We could not have had a greater contrast between the House, excited by the Adjournment on the Kenya episode, and the scene at the beginning of the Second Reading of the Iron and Steel Bill. Not only had the debate been interrupted, but it had been made to extend to 1 a.m. instead of ending at 10 p.m. But not only that. There appeared to be a strange lack of interest on the subject on the part of the Opposition.

Mr. Ivor Owen Thomas: Where were the Prime Minister's men?

The Prime Minister: Rarely have I seen such a change of mood in the House. The Oppostion Members trooped out in all directions, and a quiet, half empty House was left to listen to the debate on a Measure which, we were told, was such a flagrant example of reactionary legislation. Nothing could more clearly vindicate the Government in allocating only two days to the debate on the Second Reading of the Iron and Steel Bill than the lack of interest—and, I may say, of argumentative power—shown throughout the proceedings by the Opposition. [Interruption.] I am going through what happened on Tuesday.
We now reach the Adjournment at 7 p.m. on Kenya. I was very glad that the Opposition, or the responsible Members of it, on second thoughts did not force a party Division on the conduct of those young officers in their terrible ordeal, and that the right hon. Gentleman asked leave to withdraw the Motion. That shows how much better advised he and his colleagues would have been to have accepted my offer—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—yes—of a whole day's debate on the general question, on which, I understand, a reasoned Amendment could have been moved—and I understand is even now under discussion. After

all, we all have common interests and responsibilities in Kenya, and the situation which has come to a head there grew up mainly in the six years of Socialist administration. Certainly there was widespread relief—and it was not confined by any means to one side of the House—when the ill-timed Motion for the Adjournment—

Mr. Beswick: Ill-timed?

The Prime Minister: —was withdrawn. I am going on with the story. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen must look at how things strike other people, even if they do not agree.
It was with a sense of anti-climax when, at 10 p.m., we returned to the interrupted and mutilated debate on the Iron and Steel Bill. Again the Chamber was nearly deserted as the debate proceeded. I wish here and now to express my regret at the failure of the Government to maintain a quorum. The contrast between the stormy debate about Kenya, and the excitement it caused, and the curious apathy with which the de-nationalisation of the iron and steel industry is received by the Socialist Party—

Mr. A. C. Manuel: There was not one Tory in the House at 10 p.m.

The Prime Minister: That is not an excuse, but I must say—

Mr. George Chetwynd: On a point of order. When the debate on the Steel Bill was adjourned at 7 p.m. the last speaker—[Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I cannot hear the point of order unless hon. Members keep quiet.

Mr. Chetwynd: The last speaker was from this side of the House. When the debate was resumed at 10 p.m., Mr. Speaker had again to call on this side of the House for another speaker because there was no hon. Member opposite to speak. In those circumstances, is the Prime Minister entitled to make the remark he just made about the position in that debate?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: There is no point of order about that.

The Prime Minister: There was—[Interruption.] I remain wholly unaffected by this discourtesy and interruption, because


I know that nothing can possibly do more harm to hon. Gentlemen opposite than shouting down, and breaking down if they can by repeated interruption, the Minister who is responding to an official Motion of censure. Do not, I beg of them, imagine that this distresses me, except by contemplation of their conduct.
There was a sense of anti-climax, and I express my regret at the failure of the Government to maintain a quorum, but it was due to the contrast between the stormy debate—

Mr. I. O. Thomas: We have heard that.

The Prime Minister: I am telling the House what happened. It was due to the contrast between the stormy debate about Kenya and the apathy on the Iron and Steel Bill. As I said, this is not an excuse. It is, however, an honest explanation of the error we made in thinking that all faction was over for the night. I am confessing quite plainly that we were in error. But what was the conduct of the Opposition? Only four of their Members were present at the time—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—only four of their Members were present—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] The Opposition must not be afraid of argument; do not be afraid of what is coming; brace yourselves to bear it.
Only four of their Members were present in the Chamber at the time the count was taken. The hon. Member who moved the count has since stated that there were over 100 Socialist Members in the House at the time. Well, I do not know how many there were, but there were certainly more than would have been necessary to maintain a quorum. However, I quite agree that no responsibility to maintain a quorum rests on the Opposition. Nevertheless, they remained in hiding, these large numbers, or posted in the Lobbies or corridors to dissuade their colleagues from entering the Chamber. This must have taken a lot of planning and organisation—almost as much, perhaps, as was needed to alter the method of electing their "Shadow Cabinet" in order to isolate the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan).
If we failed to keep a House, it was a bona fide accident which is regretted. That the House was counted out was the result of an elaborate and deliberate

manoeuvre which had no regard for the importance of the Iron and Steel Bill, or for the dignity of the House. It was wholly inconsistent with the demands put forward by the Opposition for more time for the de-nationalisation Measure. It showed their love of faction for faction's sake, and the hollowness of their objections to the iron and steel de-nationalisation Bill.
I am glad to put these two Parliamentary events before the House and the country: first, the rejection of my offer for a whole day to debate the Kenya situation rather than an Adjournment debate on a particular episode; and secondly, the elaborate scheme worked out on the back benches opposite, but later blessed by the authority of the Front Bench, for getting the House counted out. The Opposition in neither case considered the public interest. They preferred sensationalism and excitement, and a needless spoiling of our debate on iron and steel.

Mr. S. Silverman: What did the right hon. Gentleman's people do?

The Prime Minister: I have already said that we regret that we did not keep a quorum. I have already explained that the reason was that after the other debate on Kenya had been concluded there was—[Interruption.] Well, if hon. Gentlemen opposite will not listen I will not interrupt my own speech.
I have gone at some length and in full detail into the sequence of events which led to the count and to the House being counted out against our responsibility, on which the Opposition have based their demand for a Motion of censure, which we have naturally accorded at the earliest possible moment. The consequences of this Socialist misbehaviour involved the House in an exhausting all-night sitting, which turned out very badly for the Opposition. In a long series of Divisions they were defeated by majorities far outranging the normal and greatly improving the Government's average majority. They were far above the normal or what we received from the electors.

Mr. I. O. Thomas: Where was the right hon. Gentleman?

The Prime Minister: I will be perfectly frank with the House. I was better employed in sound slumber on that occasion. I was, of course, paired. If I had not


taken some of these precautions I should not have sufficient strength to sustain the ordeal to which I am now being subjected.
The Opposition were beaten in this long series of Divisions. They have shown that they do not really regard the de-nationalisation of the iron and steel industry as an important or, indeed, highly controversial Measure, and this will be a valuable guide to us in considering the amount of time to be given to its later stages.
Here let me pay my tribute to the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip, who have been the subject of so much abuse. Both my right hon. Friends were in their places at the count, and I have already expressed my regret that a quorum was not maintained. But I repudiate with conviction the charge that the management of Parliamentary business this Session, or indeed since the new Parliament met, has been in any way unequal to the very difficult duties entrusted to these two Ministers.
The word "incompetence" is used in the censure Motion. [An HON. MEMBER: "Wanton incompetence."] I think that is a contradiction in terms. This rude word is not an expression of opinion which need be treated with the slightest respect. It is only a yelp of anger from men who have been beaten thoroughly in all their manoeuvres, however disreputable. Not only have Her Majesty's Government been the victors in over 250 Divisions, but they have had throughout these Divisions a majority almost double what it is on paper. Is that incompetence?
When this Parliament first met, just over a year ago, the Opposition challenged us twice on Amendments to the Address. Our actual majority is only 16. On the first occasion we had a majority of 38, and on the second 37, or more than double. Is that incompetence? In the Division on the Christmas food supplies, we had a majority of 37. Was that incompetence? In February, the Opposition tried a snap Division on an Adjournment debate on the resignation of the Chairman of the Iron and Steel Corporation. Our majority was 47. Is that incompetence?
On the question of fares, in April, we had a majority of 44. Was it incompetence that we had a majority of 64 in the

debate on food? Was it incompetence that on the Steel Bill we had a majority of 36 a week ago? Was it due to incompetence that the business for last week was finished at the time originally proposed, or that the business for this week will be disposed of with equal precision? On the contrary, our success, which has been the cause of so much anger, is due not only to the competence of the Ministers concerned but to the vigour and exertions of a united party.
The present indications seem to show that public opinion is hardening in favour of Her Majesty's Government. It may well be that this tendency will be strengthened by the exhibitions we are having and by the frustration from which the Socialist Party—or Labour Party, as I call them when I mean to be polite—rent and torn with their bitter internal quarrels, is so obviously suffering.
A year ago, their party managers thought that our majority was too small for the Government to have any real expectation of long life or of being able to undo the harm and bear successfully the grievous burden we inherited. It was prophesied by the high expert Socialist authorities that by-elections would soon reduce that majority. Mr. Morgan Phillips, whose competence I should be the last to assail, in a broadcast on 2nd November of last year said—and I will read this to the house:
If we cannot cut into the Government's majority in by-elections in the next 12 months, I will eat my hat.
The 12 months are over, so what is going to happen? Let me say that I do not think that such an unpalatable ordeal is needed at a time when the Christmas season is upon us and there will be other things to eat. I have always been an advocate of magnanimity in victory, and so far as the Government and their supporters are concerned, I wish formally to announce that we give Mr. Phillips complete release from his obligation. We will not even occupy time in asking whether his mistake was due to his competence or incompetence.
This brings me to another point to which I must draw the attention of the House, namely, the treatment by the Opposition of the mass of routine legislation without which the administration of national affairs would be brought to


a stop. Take the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. I have looked into what has happened since the war. I find that in 1945 1 hour 9 minutes were taken on it; in 1946, 1 hour 21 minutes; in 1947, 1 hour 9 minutes—through all stages; in 1948, 2 hours 51 minutes, and in the second Session in 1948–49, 53 minutes. In 1950–51 the time taken was 2 hours 44 minutes; in 1951–52, 2 hours and 41 minutes—the average of all this being 1 hour and 49 minutes. In this particular Session, we have had to give 14 hours and 33 minutes, or eight times the average for the previous years.

Mr. Alfred Robens: Will the right hon. Gentleman look into the history of the Gas Bill?

The Prime Minister: That is a tempting subject—the Gas Bill. The right hon. Gentleman has given great study to it, which he will no doubt benefit by now that he is in opposition.
I wish to speak, if I may, in reply to the Leader of the Opposition, who moved the Motion of censure. He said on 6th November of last year,
The Opposition will be vigilant but not factious. We shall not oppose merely for the sake of opposition … the Press expect a much higher standard of public service from Socialists than they do from Conservatives. They suggest that it would be quite wrong for anyone in this House to indulge now in the kind of tactics which were indulged in during the last Parliament. They expect something altogether better from us, and they are quite right."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th November, 1951; Vol. 493, c. 67.]
This was a boast of a much better performance and a much higher standard which was as little fulfilled by the Opposition as were Mr. Morgan Phillips's expectations which induced him to undertake such formidable forfeits.
I now come to the Public Works Loans Bill. Here again the time spent in the last six years has been 35 minutes, 46 minutes, 46 minutes, 50 minutes, 21 minutes, and, in 1950–51, 1 hour and 22 minutes, an average of 47 minutes for all that period, the bulk of which we were in Opposition. But on this last occasion, it is 8 hours and 39 minutes, or nearly 12 times the previous average. More time has been spent in this present Session on that Bill than in the previous six. [Interruption.] I do not pretend that I have never tried to delay the proceedings of the House,

but this is a Platter which is designed to affect our conduct of a Bill.

Mr. Anenrin Bevan: Mr. Anenrin Bevan (Ebbw Vale) rose—

The Prime Minister: Cannot you let your right hon. Friend have the afternoon, anyhow? As the right hon. Gentleman is so lonely, I will treat him with chivalry.

Mr. Bevan: I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I just wanted to understand his argument, as I am under an obligation to reply. Is he rebuking his hon. Friends behind him for the speeches they made in those debates?

The Prime Minister: I was not reproaching any of my hon. Friends behind me but trying to throw rebukes upon those who are in the wrong this afternoon. It seems to me that it is quite clear that with this process of a handful of Members, unable and unwilling to divide the House, nevertheless delaying the whole process of legislation, they could produce a situation different from any which has hitherto confronted Parliament.
The hope of the Opposition is to hold up our de-nationalisation Measures. We cannot accept the words of the Motion that these Measures are not related "to the needs of the nation." On the contrary, we should never had faced the trouble and burden of this legislation if we were not convinced that not only were we redeeming our pledges—and who would have mocked us if we had not done so?—but that we were notably improving the conditions on which the fertility and prosperity of our trade and producton depends.
I am finishing in a minute; I will not keep hon. Members under such a vocal strain for too long. I do not want to make them so hoarse that they cannot even continue the debate. But we must now contemplate this Motion of censure, and the use of normal routine business to produce deadlocks, in their larger setting. The abusive language of the right hon. Gentleman's Motion, the harsh epithets, may no doubt be dismissed with any attention it deserves, but the Motion of censure and the tactics now being employed against Her Majesty's Government in the circumstances I have described must be viewed against the general political background.
We have had two General Elections in little more than two years. Each has resulted in Parliamentary majorities far smaller than are required for the convenient course of Parliamentary business. The Standing Committees are no longer the help and relief to the House of Commons that they were. A far greater portion of our business must be conducted in the whole House. That is only one of the factors which adds to the very heavy burden imposed upon Members of all parties, but so far borne, as the figures show, with greater success by Her Majesty's Government. We feel that we are in a definitely stronger position, both in the House and in the country, than we were a year ago, but I cannot feel that it would be in the national interest to have another General Election, even though it would seem that we should improve our position, and not suffer at any future election—and hon. Members opposite should pay attention to this—the serious injury which was inflicted upon by what is now admitted to be the warmonger lie.
The country needs a period of steady, stable administration to recover from its maltreatment, as we say, but anyhow from the extreme exertions and disturbance in the preceding six years; to undo some of the work that was then done and to ward off, as we are trying to do, bankruptcy; and to strengthen and broaden the foundations of peace. I have repeatedly said that we ask to be judged by deeds not words, by results not promises; and time and perseverance are needed for these.
We do not believe that it is in the power of the party opposite to prevent us from doing what we conceive to be our duty. If we act, as we shall do, in a resolute manner, we shall make it clear to our opponents that artful dodges and dull methods of delay—[An HON. MEMBER: "Obstruction."]—I am rather careful about the word obstruction; I have looked it up, but its permissibility has carefully to be considered—cannot bring the House of Commons to a standstill; or else, if that failed, it would be the prelude to a succession of General Elections contrary to the principle of the Quinquennial Act. If we can show that a Government, even with a majority as moderate as our own, can in fact do several years' good and faithful work, we

shall have rendered a historic service to Parliamentary government.
We are much encouraged by what has happened so far and by the failure of the Opposition to mask their own internal feuds by uniting in hysterical and violent abuse of their opponents. Their conduct throughout this Parliament in our opinion has been reprehensible in a high degree. Far from moving a Motion of censure on Her Majesty's Government, they should shake and shiver in their shoes with shame.

5.48 p.m.

Mr. Malcolm MacPherson: Even after the rumbustious and partisan speech we have just heard, the Opposition would be ungrateful if we did not note one point which the right hon. Gentleman made. That one point was his reference to the count the other night. The right hon. Gentleman expressed regret that the Government had failed to keep a House. It seemed to me that that was a sound and appropriate thing for the right hon. Gentleman to do, and we appreciate it. It is rather a pity that it had to wait until today and for the Prime Minister to express such regret.
The Leader of the House, who is sitting beside him, could perfectly well have been just as gracious at a stage a good deal earlier in our deliberations. When the Prime Minister added that on that occasion he himself was better employed in sound slumber, I think he evoked a certain fellow feeling in all of us, because a remark of that sort leads to a certain amount of consideration of the way in which this House conducts its business.
Towards the end of the right hon. Gentleman's speech there was another passage on that general theme which was worth a certain amount of appreciation on our side. He commented on the situation brought about by the existence of a narrow Parliamentary majority shortly, but with, it seemed to me, a great deal more sense and wisdom than he ever showed when we were the Government and relying on a narrow majority. It does create some problems, and it is nice to know that the right hon Gentleman is awake to them, even though he was callous about them in the days of an earlier Parliament.
His attempts to explain the background of the count were. I thought, particularly


lame. When he relied upon adjectives like "wanton" in his description of the conduct of the Opposition he laid himself open to a retort in the same vein. My right hon. Friend reminded him of the remark by the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Boothby). Apart from that, even if he disclaims any success for that kind of manoeuvre, there were some things in the conduct of the Opposition under the leadership of the right hon. Gentleman which I should think he must look back on, if not with shame, at least with a certain mixture of feelings.
There was the occasion on which we had to withdraw Ministers from their work abroad, because the Opposition refused to pair them here. Any more wanton sort of action than that it is difficult to imagine. I could multiply instances, but I think that they will occur to all of us. We on this side of the House can take a certain amount of credit to ourselves—after all, the right hon. Gentleman started off by congratulating his Government, we can perhaps congratulate ourselves just a little in return—that on the whole we have been a responsible and watchful Opposition.
Of course, the right hon. Gentleman does not have the same standards of judgment about Parliamentary activities as have the majority of ordinary backbenchers, that is, the majority of hon. Members of the House. He talked on the occasion of the ending of the Adjournment debate on Kenya of a sense of anti-climax which that brought about at 10 o'clock. Most of us in this House go about our business as hon. Members of this House without thinking about climaxes or anti-climaxes. We have not the dramatic sense which the Prime Minister has. We are simply concerned with doing an ordinary day's work as Members of Parliament.
The ordinary day's work of the Government on that occasion included the keeping of a House, and there is not the slightest doubt that the right hon. Gentleman was wise to express his regret at their failure to do so. Whether he was equally wise to endorse the conduct of his right hon. Friend who holds the position of Leader of the House—he does not really lead the House, but he holds that position—is another question.
The Prime Minister praised his right hon. Friend on his management of Parliamentary business, and instanced a number of cases in which the majority that the Government obtained was rather higher than it would appear on paper. If that did not happen from time to time, it would be a curious situation. After all, it is the Government who are straining every nerve to hold their position. It is the Government who must always be on their toes in the matter of winning a Division. It is the Government who must do rather more than seems absolutely necessary in matters of that sort. And if their majority, once in a while, was not rather higher than was shown on paper, the Leader of the House would be extremely incompetent.
As it is, the great majority of hon. Members on this side of the House, and one suspects also on the other side of the House as well, would not find the Prime Minister's defence of the Leader of the House particularly convincing. When one contrasts the right hon. Gentleman with his two predecessors, one notices quite a number of rather striking dissimilarities which are always to the disadvantage of the right hon. Gentleman. We have become too much accustomed to every question, every suggestion, every expression of doubt or anxiety, being met with the same kind of dead-pan stone-walling. We have become accustomed to associating that almost with the right hon. Gentleman's appearance.
There is never the come-and-go. There is never the back-chat. There is never the joking and good temper one was accustomed to during the time of previous occupants of his office. It is always a case of taking his stand, standing pat, and saying, "Oh, that is not in next week's business, I cannot answer a question like that." And that is the best of his behaviour. The worst of his behaviour is that he does not familiarise himself enough with the work of the House. What other Leader of the House in my memory—my memory is short but in the memory of other hon. Members—has ever been in such a position that he gave a reply about a piece of business, "We had better wait until the White Paper on that comes out before we debate it" and was met by the remark from the Opposition, "The White Paper was published a fortnight ago"?
The right hon. Gentleman varies between dead-pan stolidity on the one hand and plain, sheer incompetence—the word in the Motion—on the other hand. And when the Prime Minister endorsed his activities, and even praised him, he was doing so, not from an objective, impartial point of view, but from the point of view that, for a leader of the Government it is an advantage to have a stonewalling, stand-pat Leader of the House, because then his majority can come into play. If he cannot keep the House with him; if he cannot keep the House in a good temper; if he cannot keep the House co-operating with a certain amount of friendship, of give-and-take and that kind of thing, he can always settle everything by relying on the majority.
These things which we are discussing just now are themselves symptoms of deeper things. I think my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was on very sound ground when he reminded the Prime Minister that the present Government have had six years in which to prepare. In fact, those six years were vital years in the existence of the party which formed the Government at the end of them.
In 1945, at the beginning of that period, the Conservative Party emerged into a political world which, both in this country and in the world outside, was a good deal different from the political world to which that party had been accustomed. It was a very unfamiliar world, and very unpleasant in a great many ways. What they should have done as an Opposition during that period—it is nice to be able to lecture them on occasions, it is one of the advantages of being in opposition that one can lecture the Government—was to settle down and learn something about this new world in which they aspired to take power.
The Labour Party had the difficult job of meeting the problems presented by the post-war world. They met them, generally speaking, with confidence and success, because they had a certain amount of understanding of and sympathy with the aspirations of the new world. During that period, and without the burden of office on their shoulders, the then Opposition could perfectly well have been familiarising themselves very thoroughly with the problems they would meet when

they came to power. Instead, they did almost nothing of that sort of thing. As an opposition party, they twiddled their thumbs and waited until the newspaper owners would create a big enough vote for them to win the next Election, which of course happened in the course of time.
Today they have gone even beyond that. I understand that they are nowadays contemplating the possibility—or they have already in fact done it—of putting their relations with the public and with the voter, as a party, as distinct from the relations of the ordinary individual Member to his constituents, in the hands not merely of their own propagandists in their own office but actually of an advertising firm. I hope that this is not true. If it is, it must be just about as low a level as the ordinary conduct of day-to-day politics in this country has ever reached. It would not be necessary for them to do that kind of thing had they made a serious attempt to grasp the nature of the problems of the world after 1945. It is because they did not make that attempt that they are now in a position to give us such a fumbling, incompetent and highly partisan type of Government.
The Government, when they came into power, were heralded by the kind of propaganda which led the country to expect firm conduct of the nation's business. In point of fact, we have had chopping and changing all the time. Continually the Government have taken up positions from which they have had to resile, after just getting a push from the Opposition. The B.B.C. governors, for instance; the Home Guard—the push there was not from the Opposition but from the country as a whole—and transport, in which the push was again from the country as a whole, plus the interests involved. Every time the Government have shifted round. The other night we had the Government showing the extreme difficulty they have in making up their mind about Scottish affairs. They have, in point of fact, been a very casual and careless Government in regard to Scotland.

Mr. A. Woodburn: Hear, hear.

Mr. MacPherson: I do not want to say very much personally about the Secretary of State for Scotland. We find him rather a nice fellow, but I am bound to add that he came to the Secretaryship of State having served practically no


apprenticeship, and I am afraid, in spite of his personal qualities, he shows a lack of Ministerial experience and of some of the qualities that go with it.
The Prime Minister, when he was in opposition, was most decided about Scottish affairs. I remember his going to one of the districts of Glasgow and making a firm and decided speech on the subject.
We shall not hesitate,
he said, using the familiar, magnificent and rather heroic phraseology that he likes to use,
to appoint an additional under-secretary.
The Government did take that heroic step, but that is almost the only thing they have done without hesitation in Scottish affairs. In Welsh affairs they have been hesitant even over that particular point.
The difficulties from which the Government suffer are due very largely to the fact that they have been hesitant in face of a set of problems which they do not fully understand. Even a specific matter like transport could have been prepared. It is extremely interesting to see what happens about transport. In 1947, when our Bill was passed, the then Opposition gave us the assurance that when they came to power there would be changes. That was five years ago. The Tory Party are supposed to have a central organisation and a central secretariat which presumably does a fair amount of donkey work for them. Yet when they came to power there was no sign whatever that any preparation had been made on the matter of transport.
They came to transport apparently completely new, in spite of the fact that they had decided as a party in 1947 that they were going to make changes. Even a matter like the transport levy, which was bound to get publicity and attract attention, could easily have been checked for its weaknesses and the party could have found these easily, either as a result of public statement or by private inquiries among their friends. The proposal was produced in the White Paper just as if they had no notion that there would be any outcry against it.
That is the whole spirit of the Government. They have come into office in the expectation of gaining their experience in office at the expense of the people whom they are governing. In fact, they have

come into contact with sad facts in the course of these few years and are finding it very difficult to react properly to them. The primary reaction of the Government is to go back. They do not really want to deal with the new postwar world. They would rather deal with the world of the old days. We can easily see the cleavage—not in their ranks, because the Conservative Party has its own peculiar cement in its ranks that enables it to work in rather a different way from our methods—

Mr. Robert Boothby: Some call it loyalty.

Mr. MacPherson: There are other names for it. [An HON. MEMBER: "Money."] Some people give it curious names. In the Labour Party we have always had a number of outside Lefts who were very far on the extreme wing but we have always built up a solid and effective party. Inside the Conservative Party a different sort of process is going on. There is the younger wing represented by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who have some understanding, a very sound understanding it seems to me, of present-day problems, though they are not very sure how to get their party to face them.
On the other hand, there are the people who were brought up in that party in the old world and who want to go back to the old conditions. They know the road back a lot better than the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his friends know the road forward. It is very unfortunate. They want to get back to the old days of lower taxation particularly, and a number of other things associated with it.
So we get the Prime Minister making almost a policy out of undoing what the Labour Party did: de-nationalisation, returning the University seats and various things of that sort. Even the idea of the convertibility of the £ is canvassed quite widely at the moment on the benches opposite. There is the old business of retrenching, saving and economising in any way. One of the meanest actions of the Government since they came to power has been cutting down the allocation to U.N.E.S.C.O., saving a miserable £40,000 for each of two years.

The Minister of Education (Miss Florence Horsbrugh): The hon. Gentleman probably does not know that he is


making a statement that is not correct. The amount has gone up.

Mr. MacPherson: I base my statement on the right hon. Lady's answer to an oral Question the other day. If my statement is wrong, it is because she has not answered the Question fully.

Miss Horsbrugh: I can explain. What I said in my answer to the Question was that the amount in the next two years would be more than it had ever been, but not as much as was suggested by the Director-General.

Mr. MacPherson: The right hon. Lady is quite wrong. She gave no such answer. What she gave me were the figures. What she explained was that she was dealing with the two-year Budget of U.N.E.S.C.O. and that it had been cut down from a figure of 20 million dollars to 18 million dollars. She also explained that as a result the contribution of this country would be £730,000 instead of £810,000. That is a reduction of £80,000 over two years. That is the extent of the answer of the right hon. Lady.

Miss Horsbrugh: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will explain it in the following way. Indeed, I thought I had done so, because I remember well the answer. In the course of discussions as to the amount we should vote for two years, the United Kingdom delegation suggested that it should be kept at the same annual amount of 17.4 million dollars. The suggestion was made by other nations that this 17.4 million dollars should go up to 18 million dollars and the United Kingdom delegation agreed. The amount that the Director-General had asked for was 20 million dollars. We shall be contributing more in the next two years, therefore, if this budget goes through, and it will be larger than it has ever been.

Mr. MacPherson: The right hon. Lady is gracious in giving me that information but I will read her answer, which I have here:
As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister explained in an answer yesterday the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation has accepted for the two years 1953 and 1954 a budget of $18 million in place of $20 million proposed by the Director-General. The United Kingdom contribution to a budget of $20 million is estimated at about £810,000 and to a budget of $18 million at about £730,000."—

[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th November. 1952; Vol. 508, c. 91.]

Miss Horsbrugh: indicated assent.

Mr. Boothby: Would the hon. Gentleman be good enough to explain to the House in what way the incompetency of the leadership of the Chief Whip is responsible for the suggested U.N.E.S.C.O. budget?

Mr. MacPherson: I am sorry I have not made it clear. In the party opposite there are two tendencies: one caused by the nature of the Conservative Party which wants to go back and economise; the other caused by the realists who understand that the situation in the postwar world is not one in which we can go blindly back. The Government have not yet managed to resolve that conflict in their own mind. I think, and I think history will show, that to be incompetence.
The general situation reminds me of the situation at about the same time after the First World War. Seven years after that the Baldwin Government were just getting under way in their long and useless period of office. What they did in that period was very little. What this Government are apparently setting out to do is also very little. They are just trying to undo some of what we have done, to get a little nearer to where we started. To use an American phrase, a return to normalcy is the ideal of a great many hon. Members opposite, and they find it particularly desirable in the financial field.
In the last few months we have had the extraordinary experience of back bencher after back bencher opposite putting to front benchers requests for reductions in expenditure. Right hon. Gentlement on the Front Bench opposite remember perfectly well the experience of Labour front benchers during the last two Parliaments when request after request was made from the Conservative side of the House for increases in expenditure. Now that they are in office we have a general drift towards saving. Sir Stafford Cripps once calculated the additional amount he was being asked for in this way by Conservative back benchers. I cannot remember the exact figure, but it came to hundreds of millions a year. Now, however, we have this headlong rush back to the days of comparatively low taxation.


The ideal of a great many Members opposite is the ideal of the middle twenties—

Captain Richard Pilkington: Is the hon. Member aware that he has been speaking for nearly half an hour and has now got to the middle twenties?

Mr. MacPherson: I generally try to finish in 20 minutes. I have spoken for 25 minutes and I have no intention of continuing much longer. This is partly due to the right hon. Lady and partly due to causes of a more personal sort, but the hon. Gentleman will be relieved to know that I am about to finish.
Today I found the Prime Minister particularly unconvincing in his defence of the Government against the Motion. He was extremely laboured and did not make a single point in rebuttal of the points made in the Motion. The right hon. Gentleman stated, but did not attempt to prove, that many of the Measures that are being rushed through are Measures which are not really relevant to the major problems of the country, such as the increase of production and the increase in exports. Neither did he make any serious attempt to explain in what way his right hon. Friend was seriously and all the time competent, in what field he had failed and was incompetent, or in what way he had given good leadership to the House. I feel that the terms of the Motion well describe the situation in the House just now, and I am glad to add my support to it.

6.18 p.m.

Mr. Robert Boothby: I should like to follow the hon. Gentleman into the problem of convertibility, which is one about which I feel strongly, but it would not be directly relevant to this Motion. I was also a little puzzled by his observations with regard to U.N.E.S.C.O. which I regard as rather a moribund institution. I did not know whether his reference to the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education indicated that she was looking backward or forwards—

An Hon. Member: Or sideways.

Mr. MacPherson: It appears that the right hon. Lady was looking forward because, since that reduction has been made, there has been such difficulty in the affairs of U.N.E.S.C.O., to which the action of our Government has in part

contributed, that it is now in a state of crisis. I hope the hon. Gentleman will not express happiness about that.

Mr. Boothby: I am not unduly worried about U.N.E.S.C.O., but I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman thinks that my right hon. Friend is looking forward. That is very satisfactory.
A number of hon. Members have been kind enough to give me notice, Mr. Speaker, that they propose to make reference today to a speech which I made some time ago at Banstead—the "harrying" speech. I think it might be for the convenience of the House if I make my position clear on this subject now, so that hon. Members can know where I stand.
Believe it or not, Mr. Speaker, that speech was on the subject of the dollar gap. That has not hitherto been generally realised in the country. In reply to a question at the end as to how we could get rid of the Government, in an ill-advised moment I gave an off-the-cuff answer. I said there were only two ways of getting rid of a government: one was to defeat them in the Division Lobby, and the other was to make their lives so unendurable that they would be glad to give up office. It seemed to me a very sensible reply at the time, and true; even when I said "harry them" and all the rest of it. I do not remember having said it, but I do not deny that I did.
I have done and said quite a lot of foolish things in my life, and also quite a number of sensible ones. I have no hesitation in saying that, on balance, I think that that particular answer was the most foolish I have ever given. I had nostalgic memories of the great days of Mr. Pringle, Mr. Hogge, Commander Kenworthy, as he then was, and Captain Wedgwood Benn. When they were conducting their buccaneering House of Commons operations, they were conducting them, of course, against a Government with a vast majority. But it was fun for those who were able to watch it, and I am old enough to have seen it going on.
At the time I gave that reply, I also thought that the country wanted to get rid of the Government and that the Government were clinging to office in defiance of public opinion. I therefore thought that great pressure should be exercised to get the Government to make a further


appeal to the country. Although I was proved technically right by the Election, I was proved theoretically wrong because, broadly speaking, the balance between the two major parties was not seriously disturbed at the General Election that subsequently took place.
I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has now come in, because I should like to make it quite plain to the House in his presence that the views I expressed in that celebrated answer were not shared by my leaders, out of whose sight I thought it prudent to keep for some considerable time.
The Chief Whip rang me up the next morning before I had seen the newspapers and while I was still dreaming of the dollar gap—which, I remind the House had been the subject of my speech and the problem that I was discussing. His words were very nearly unprintable, certainly as nearly unprintable as is possible for him; but it was only when he informed me on the telephone at half-past seven in the morning that the present Prime Minister would tell me what he thought of the speech that I actually begged for mercy.
Therefore, I wish to exonerate my leaders altogether from any responsibility for those remarks, which I have since publicly withdrawn, and to which I subsequently and long ago, before this debate ever arose, added some further reflections particularly in a letter to the "Manchester Guardian." As one who has sat here continuously through six Parliaments, I should now like to give them briefly to the House.
It is probable, I suppose, that the present political balance in the country will be maintained for a very long period ahead—just how long ahead, one cannot tell. I thought at one time that it was bound to be ended in a very short time, but it now looks quite possible that a series of Governments will hold office by very slender majorities of not more than, perhaps, 20 or 30, which prior to the war was regarded as a quite unworkable majority.
So long as that situation continues, purely obstructive tactics on the part of the Opposition can lead only to one of two things: first, a series of General Elections, as the Prime Minister indicated this afternoon, or, alternatively, a situation in Parliament that becomes so unendurable that the whole of our Parliamentary

procedure and the working of Parliament will be in jeopardy. I think that if either of these things happens, it would become a threat to our democracy.
I personally have no complaint to make over the incident of the count the other night—that was all in the game. We were, perhaps, caught napping. The Opposition scored a palpable hit in the Parliamentary game—that is all in the day's work. I suggest, however, that if this political balance is to continue—and we must all bear in mind the probability that it will—we must have more effective co-operation between the Front Benches on both sides of the House in order to get through necessary Government business.
I do not like the Guillotine, and I think that the first day's operation of the Guillotine on the Transport Bill was not very satisfactory. It would have been very much better if we could have had an arrangement, as we used to do in the old days, between the Opposition and the Government of the day with regard to the broad time under which the Committee stage should be passed, which would be far more flexible than the Guillotine can possibly be, and which would vary in accordance with how the debate ran.

Mr. Woodburn: Would the hon. Gentleman not agree that that could have been possible even under the Allocation of Time Order if sufficient total time had been allocated to the Bill? How is it possible under any arrangement at all to discuss all the details of the Bill in seven Sittings?

Mr. Boothby: I think not, under the prevailing temper and mood of the House, which I think this Motion of Censure may help to clear up.

Mr. William Ross: What about Scotland?

Mr. Boothby: I do not like the way Scotland has been treated recently, but I do not see how we are going to get fair and good treatment for anybody so long as this state of real bitterness and antagonism exists, particularly between the two Front Benches. I would go so far as to say that if we could get a measure—I ask no more than that—of effective co-operation between the two Front Benches for the conduct of business—and also, may I add, a little more official approval of the idea of pairing


and a little more friendliness about that—it would be very much better for the House as a whole.

Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas: rose—

Mr. Boothby: I am sorry not to give way, but I do not want to prolong my remarks. I rose only to make my position clear with regard to the Banstead speech.
I have quite recently met a number of young men of considerable promise belonging to both the major parties. They have told me that the conditions of the House of Commons are such that it is quite impossible for them to enter public life. That is not a good thing for the country. They see what goes on here, and they read and hear about it. They know that it is becoming increasingly difficult to lead a tolerable life during a Session of Parliament, or to make an income of their own of any kind. This will drive a lot of good young men out of public life altogether unless we make some changes.
My plea, therefore, is that the House should address itself as a whole to a new situation, unprecedented in this country, in which we have to face the possibility of a prolonged period when no Government has what used to be called a workable majority. In these circumstances, if we wish to preserve our democratic institutions, we may well have to think again.

6.28 p.m.

Mr. Henry Usborne: I am very glad indeed that I have managed to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, in order to follow the speech we have just heard from the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Boothby), I have considerable sympathy with some of the points he has just made. This is a valuable debate. I am very glad indeed that the Motion of Censure has been moved, because it gives an opportunity, which we ought now to take, to study as carefully as we can some of the underlying trends which are now occurring and which have a certain sinister content.
I believe, with the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East, that we ought to watch our step, because I think that what has been happening in this Parliament and what happened in the one before—

the two Parliaments having narrow majorities—is a sign of the times, and that unless we can alter this trend we may very well be heading for a disastrous situation.
We should remember, just now particularly, that Parliamentary democracy in general throughout the world in under attack. It is not certain yet to the historians that it will survive; and it is our job, above any other nation, to try to make it work and try to adapt it to a changing world, a world which has changed fantastically rapidly in the last few decades. I do not think it is deniable that considerable adaptation is necessary.
I think we must admit that Parliaments with slender majorities are likely in the future to be the rule rather than the exception. There may be an occasion when a vast change takes place, but I think it is likely to be followed by a Parliament very evenly divided. I am not in the least surprised, nor do I particularly complain, that the Conservatives in this Parliament should propose to de-nationalise steel or transport. Anyone who voted for the Conservatives in the last General Election must have expected them to do that. Indeed, every party has occasionally to make its libation to the more extreme of its tribal gods, its pressure groups, and it is not in the least surprising.
What I want to examine is the method by which the Government are trying to get their legislation through, legislation which, Conservatives must know, just as we know, is not of great importance. There is very little interest in the country on either side in nationalisation and de-nationalisation. It is quite surprising, in view of the heat and excitement generated a year ago, how very little the constituents are now excited one way or the other.
I assume that for some time to come there will be small majorities, and I want to put to the House the proposition that where a Government have to operate in this House of Commons on a narrow majority it is quite possible, indeed probable, that the Committee stage of most of their Bills will have to be taken on the Floor of the House. We had to do that in the last Parliament, and the present Government have to do it in this. My hon. Friend the Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart), in his speech in


the Guillotine debate the other day, showed conclusively and factually why it was that that has to be done.
The Conservative Party, with a comparatively close majority, cannot in the Standing Committee always expect to maintain a majority in the morning. Therefore, if they want to get the Committee stage taken, they have to take it on the Floor of the House. It is my belief that in the Committee stage of these Bills the function of the Opposition is not to kill the Bill; it is to improve it. It is on the Second and Third Readings that we try to stop the Bill going through and put every possible objection in its way; but, if the Opposition are defeated and the Bill goes through, it is their function in the Committee stage to do their best to ensure that the Bill, when it becomes law, will be the best possible law in the circumstances.
At this point I would refer to another aspect. It seems to me that a curious new interpretation of the function of an Opposition is becoming prevalent. The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East expressed it in the reply he is alleged to have given in his Banstead speech. He said that there were only two ways of getting a Government out of power. They were either to defeat the Government in the House of Commons, or to make its life so unbearable that it would want to go.
That presupposes—I suppose there is some element of truth in this—that the function of an Opposition in the House of Commons is to get rid of the Government. I do not accept that view. It seems to me that the electorate should decide what Government it wants, and the electorate will decide when it wants to change that Government.—[An HON. MEMBER: "How can it?"]—It can easily do so. Everyone knows that the practical effect produced on the Government is not so much by the situation in the House as by the situation periodically revealed in by-elections.
It seems to me that the electorate still want this Government. I think the electorate in this are extremely stupid; but I also have to admit that that was its decision and, as a democrat, I must abide by it.

Mr. Geoffrey Bing: I do not know whether my hon. Friend is aware that the Conservative Party gained

fewer votes at the General Election than the party of which he is a member. Is that one of the reason he thinks they should be continued in office?

Mr. Usborne: I do not happen to be sure of that, and I do not believe it can in fact be sustained. There are many arguments, and I have read most of them, as to whether or not the Labour Party polled more votes than the Conservative Party. They did, of course, if one only counts the votes which were actually polled. But in certain constituencies the Member elected was unopposed—

Mr. Bing: In which English constituency?

Mr. Usborne: I will go ahead with my argument and my hon. and learned Friend, if he is fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, can go forward with his.
If it be true that the majority of the voters voted Labour but the majority of the seats gained were Conservative, we have no right to complain about that, unless as a party we are prepared to advocate the reform of the electoral system. And evidently we are not prepared to do that. We cannot expect to have it both ways. It seems to me that if we are prepared to accept this anomalous, curious and illogical system to deal with curious, illogical human beings, we must abide by the result, and if we so abide we must accept the consequence.
The point I am trying to make is that the function of the Opposition is not primarily and continuously to try to defeat the Government. There are certainly occasions when that must be our objective. There are many other occasions when our duty as an Opposition is, with a shrug of the shoulders, accepting the verdict of the electorate, to try to help the Government, which the electorate has chosen, to make better legislation.
If we adopt the principle that the object of the Opposition is continuously to harass the Government so that their lives are so great a burden that they can never make a cool, calm judgment, the net result of that tactic—if I am right in my supposition that we have a long time ahead of us with narrow majorities—will be that Parliament ensures that the people get the worst possible legislation all the


time. I do not think that is what we ought to do.
Having accepted, as I think we must, that the Committee stage of a great many Bills will have to be taken on the Floor of the House, precisely and admittedly because a Government with a narrow majority cannot get Bills through upstairs, it seems to follow that if we want the Committee stage to be useful and to serve a profitable purpose in the sense that it makes a Bill better, we have to try to reproduce in the House as a whole the kind of atmosphere which generally prevails in Committee upstairs.
I am against the Guillotine and I think I was the only person to oppose it when it was proposed by my own side. I am always against the Guillotine, but, if it happens that we must have the Guillotine, it is still better that it should be applied in an atmosphere more comparable to that which generally prevails in Committee upstairs, where the Members most interested get more time to devote to problems under consideration.
What we must try to do is to make the Committee stage on the Floor of the House resemble as closely as possible the atmosphere which obtains in Committee upstairs; but we cannot do that if we apply a three-line whip and insist that all our Members must be present, and prevent them from pairing with Government Members so that nearly all of them have also to be present. If that is the situation, automatically an atmosphere is produced in which it is assumed, not that we try to improve the Clauses, but that we constantly try to defeat the Government. I believe that is wrong.
The rot was not started by us. It was interesting to hear the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East confess that the fault lay only with himself, but can he deny that at the time the right hon. Member who is now Prime Minister was the leader of his party? If he was the leader of his party, he must take responsibility for the action of his party at the time. It is undeniable that they took that harassing action, which was intended not to improve the legislation we were trying to get, but to harry us and wear us out, because they thought we ought not to be in power.

Mr. Boothby: Will the hon. Gentleman give me credit for not having myself taken part? I never even prayed.

Mr. Usborne: I am not surprised. Perhaps the hon. Member would be a little better if sometimes he did pray.
The point I was on was that we have got ourselves into a parlous situation, which was created in the first place by the antics of the Conservative Party in the last Parliament. This was the first time that they experienced Government with a small majority; and they took it upon themselves to judge that the electorate were wholly against us. They started the antics of harrying and worrying the Government party, and it is hardly surprising—although I make no excuse for it—that when we became Opposition we should continue with the same bitterness the same tactics as they applied to us.
I have shown how it first came about, and why it now continues, but this analysis does not get us out of the position which we have unfortunately reached. I think the procedure we are practising today is deplorable. I do not think it does the House of Commons any credit, and I do not believe it enhances the reputation of Parliamentary democracy, which in my view is what matters.
I wanted to speak in this debate because I believe that since the Conservative Party have been at both ends of it, both the giving end and the receiving end, it is their job and duty to get up and deplore what they did and admit that it was wrong. Furthermore, they must make a promise that, if they get into Opposition again, as I trust they will very soon, they will not repeat the tactics they used in the 1950–51 Parliament. If that were done, it would be possible in the Committee stage of Bills to allow a reasonable amount of pairing so that those people who really were anxious to take part in these debates could do so in a more congenial and sympathetic atmosphere.
I am thinking now of those people who profess to be experts in certain kinds of legislation. I do not think it makes it any easier for them if many of us who are not interested or experts in these particular problems come along and make speeches. The civilisation in which we are living today is such that, if we are to make any contribution to anything, we have to try to concentrate our attention on one subject, be an expert on one subject, even if it means being almost entirely ignorant of others.
It does not help those people who are wanting to use their knowledge to improve legislation if a lot of us who are not particularly interested and are not knowledgeable about it, are forced by three-line whips to be in the House night after night. Nor is it surprising if some of us get up and make speeches not much to the point and maybe facetious to give us a little publicity in our local Press.
But it is not a good thing for Parliamentary democracy, and that is what I am concerned with. I do not think it appeals to the electorate either. I think the people are now so confused at the crazy way that this House of Commons appears to be acting that they are at a loss to know how it survives and works as well as it does.

Mr. Cyril Bence: Who started it?

Mr. Usborne: I have already explained that, but perhaps the hon. Member was not in when I related how it all started and why it is now continuing.
I want to conclude by saying we have got ourselves into this position.

Mr. Percy Collick: I am obliged to the hon. Member for giving way, because to me it seems that he has not appreciated the weakness of his own argument. Surely the position is this. When the previous Government were in power they had a majority of only six, with the result that they studiously avoided presenting any controversial legislation to this House. Because of that, we were able to carry on as we did. The present Government have completely failed to respect that position, and, though they have a tiny majority in the House and an even smaller majority in the country, and are without any mandate for these major controversial items, they have submitted Bills dealing with transport and steel, and these have given rise to the very atmosphere that the hon. Member is deploring.

Mr. Usborne: I know that a lot of people use that argument and most of them believe it, but I am not entirely convinced that it was because we had a narrow majority in the last Parliament that we did not introduce some of the controversial legislation. I am sorry to be a cynic about this, but I am not satisfied that that was entirely the truth.

There may have been an element of truth in what the hon. Gentleman says, but not everyone believes it is all the truth.
I come to the main point; it is that I do not think our present situation is satisfactory. It could be most easily cured if the Prime Minister or some responsible Minister on the Government Front Bench would make a speech and explain what happened in the past and who was responsible for initiating in the last Parliament the tactics we deplore today. He must explain the effect that it has on legislation, its percussions on the country as a whole, and, as I said earlier, he must promise that he will try to prevent this kind of thing from happening again if and when the Conservatives go into Opposition.
The most precious heritage we possess is this superbly delicate, wonderfully effective and illogical institution, Parliamentary democracy. It will not stay effective unless it can adapt itself. Over long centuries our forefathers in this free land have fought and died to build and preserve it.

Mr. George Wigg: Will the hon. Member also agree that one of the essential things to make a democracy is that Members on both sides should attend regularly?

Mr. Usborne: I am glad that the hon. Member who used to be my Whip has raised that point. I am not so convinced. If it is argued that the first primary and paramount duty is for all Members always to be here, then we all know what a burden is involved. If we are to be here all the time, then it means—and we must accept the consequences—that, as the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East said, a great many promising young people cannot, in fact, enter public life at all. I believe that the value of our Parliament is precisely because it is a microcosm of our people. It is not made up of experts or specialists who live solely upon the salary which they gain from their membership of Parliament. The whole essence of Parliamentary democracy will differ if these people cannot be here, though that will be inevitable if what my hon. Friend says is to be followed. It will be a pity if ever that happens.
The logic of the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) is that if this kind of situation


is to prevail, then people like myself cannot be in public life. As far as I am concerned, it will make no difference to me or to the House of Commons. I do not count in this respect; but I happen to represent a Birmingham constituency in which town there are thousands and thousands of people like myself. It would be a great pity if none of the people in my sort of position are able to be represented in the House of Commons. That is my view. I could be wrong.
I will conclude by saying that our first duty is to try to make the principles of Parliamentary democracy work effectively. This involves a dual loyalty, a loyalty both to one's party and to our Parliament. In the last analysis, if, as sometimes can happen, loyalty to one's party conflicts with one's loyalty to Parliament, I have no doubt which duty comes first: it is to Parliament.

6.50 p.m.

Mr. Malcolm McCorquodale: I am very glad to have caught you eye, Mr. Speaker, immediately after the speech of the hon. Member for Yardley (Mr. Usborne). In my judgment, it was a most impressive, honest and frank speech, and a very brave one. If this Motion is to be justified in any way—personally I do not think that it is—then it can be justified in that it has called forth a speech such as the one we have just heard.
I was interested to note the reaction which it caused. I was sorry to see that it was greeted with a certain amount of incredulity and even hostility. I believe that it is the same spirit which met his arguments with hostility which is at present vitiating our Parliamentary procedure; and that our Parliamentary procedure is vitiated at present must be obvious to all of us. Indeed, that is the object of this debate.
I hope, therefore, that as much thought as is possible will be given to a great deal of what the hon. Member said. Naturally there were points with which people disagreed, but his remarks on how to make Parliament work in the best interests of the nation in the difficulties in which we find ourselves were comments on a subject which we all have very much at heart. As a speaker from this side of the House, I am glad to be able to express my admiration of the speech by the hon. Member for Yardley.
I wish to make a few remarks on both parts of the Motion of censure. Many precedents can be quoted for what has been going on in Parliament recently. In the past hard words have often been spoken across the Table in the heat of debate by either side, and I am glad to say that as time goes on those hard words are soon forgotten. I sincerely say that, judging from my 20 years in Parliament, I do not think that this Opposition has been treated by this Government in a way any different—certainly no worse or more unfairly—than any Opposition has been treated by any Government during that period. Indeed, I do not think that the Opposition have anything more to complain about than any other Opposition had during the last 20 years at the hands of any Government.
Of course, Oppositions like to complain about Governments, and Governments like to complain about Oppositions from time to time. That is essential in a two-party system. But the hubbub and row that we have had over the last two or three days seem to have been totally out of proportion. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip have, if possible, been rather too indulgent sometimes with the Opposition, and precious little thanks have they had for it.
I seem to recall that only last Thursday the House could have adjourned, but the Leader of the House gave the whole day to two Prayers moved by the Opposition.

Mr. Bevan: Would not the right hon. Gentleman like to reflect upon what he has said? The Leader of the House has not the right to deny a debate on Prayers.

Mr. McCorquodale: I understood from what Mr. Speaker said on that occasion that the precedent was that the House should adjourn immediately. If that is the case, then the Prayers would not have been heard.

Mr. Bevan: That is not the case. The right hon. Gentleman does not recollect the facts accurately. What happened on that occasion was that the House proceeded to discuss the business on the Order paper, the Motion which was to be moved by the Leader of the House being out of order.

Mr. McCorquodale: And so the House might well have adjourned.

Mr. Bevan: No.

Mr. McCorquodale: That is my opinion.
Further, the Motion talks about incompetence. The method by which I judge incompetence is whether one would employ in an important position, if one was in a position to give such a post to anyone, the person under consideration. I must cofess that with that in mind I would say that my two right hon. Friends come very much higher in the list of competency than their two opposite numbers whom we knew in the last Parliament. But it is rather a pity that we should have to go into these personalities on either side. It is the duty of the Government to govern and, in order to govern they must—

Mr. Ross: Be counted out.

Mr. McCorquodale: I agree with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Boothby) about that incident. The Opposition caught us napping. Nobody denies that. They can be congratulated upon the success of their little strategy. I understand that one of the more happy parts of the stratagem was that it was the birthday of the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg).

Mr. Wigg: No.

Mr. McCorquodale: I was told that it was. I am sorry if my information, which I received from a Member of his Party, was wrong. I understood that that was why he was chosen for that little task.
I should like to follow a little further the comments of the hon. Member for Yardley. There is a problem of increasing difficulty which we in this House must face. We do no good to Parliament as an institution or to Parliamentary democracy as a way of life if we behave in a way which seems to the ordinary man and woman outside to have little connection with realities.
The reasons for this have been mentioned. We have these close Parliamentary majorities first on one side and then on the other. Further, the modern complexity of national life puts a much greater strain on our Parliamentary institutions, and we still have our old-fashioned methods, hallowed by centuries of tradition, of debate and of voting. I

should like to see, at some appropriate time, this House as a corporate body, by means of a Select Committee or in some other way, considering these matters of making the work of the House of Commons tolerable for the Members and arranging business so that the Government of the day can, where they justify themselves in the eyes of the nation and the House, carry on with the legislation of the country.
I believe that if that were done with good will on both sides of the House we might be able to get down to some amendment of our procedure which might have the effect the hon. Gentleman opposite obviously desires, and which I believe a great number of his colleagues and a great number of hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House also desire. For I am quite sure that none of us in this House is entirely happy at the way in which at present we have to carry on our affairs.
I wish to make a few remarks upon the second part of this Motion of censure, which:
records the view that this is in part brought about by the efforts of Ministers to force through measures, unrelated to the needs of the nation, for which they have no adequate support in Parliament or the country.
That seems to me to be a rather curious censure Motion. We usually have in a censure Motion condemnation of a Government about some particular major field of their activities. But, of course, how difficult it would be for the Opposition to be able to move a Motion of censure upon the Government, in view of the brilliant successes which they have achieved over the last year?
For instance, had the Opposition endeavoured to move a Motion of censure upon the Government for their handling of financial and economic policy, in restoring financial solvency to this country, rescuing it, as they did, from the brink of bankruptcy and ruin, they would have been laughed out of court, both in this House and in the country. Or, to take another major field of activity, if the Opposition had wished to move a Motion of censure upon the Government for its handling of defence and foreign affairs, they would, first of all, have to deal with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), the late Minister of Defence.
I think that, possibly, the Prime Minister was too harsh yesterday with the late Minister of Defence. What has the late Minister of Defence been doing recently? He has been going round the country campaigning for a reduction to half of the period of National Service. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] He has been going round advocating that policy, and the interesting thing is that not all of his audiences have seen the implication of his words. Expressed freely, what in effect he is saying is that the Conservative Government having been in power for a year under the guidance of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, we are now in a position to decrease our period of National Service, owing, quite obviously, to the successes which the present Government have had. Indeed, I think we on this side of the House should be grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, because these are the only implications that one can draw from the campaign which he has been running.
Then, of course, if these two large fields of policy are ruled out—and, quite obviously, they would be, because the Opposition would never dare to move a censure Motion on either of them—let them come a little nearer home. Could they move a censure Motion on such an issue as the Government's progress with the housing of the people? I think the Government's record on housing the people is now so well-known that I am surprised that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale is even going to be bold enough to wind up for the Opposition tonight.

Mr. Bevan: Wait for it.

Mr. McCorquodale: It is comforting for the right hon. Gentleman that he will not have to justify in detail his own housing record, as against that of my right hon. Friend.
No, we all know the real object of this Motion of censure. There has been in the country a considerable amount of unease, especially amongst decent and loyal supporters of the Socialist Party, at the state of affairs in their party in Parliament. The season of Christmas is approaching—the season of friendship and good will—and I have no doubt that many expressions of opinion have been

received that it would be a good thing for the two protagonists on the Opposition side—the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Attlee), the late Prime Minister, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale—to be able to be the two spokesmen for their party in the same debate.
It would be very difficult for them to be the two spokesmen of the Labour Party in a debate dealing with the practical policies which they were advocating, because it appears to the general public and especially to us here that they advocated opposite policies; but, of course, they can both agree on a Motion of censure attacking the Government—hence this censure Motion today. The success of the stratagen initiated by the hon. Member for Dudley did, I suppose, provide a sort of opportunity for the start of this Motion of censure.
May I now raise rather a personal note with regard to the last words of this Motion, which are—
for which they have no adequate support in Parliament or the country.
I have been engaged for some little time in carrying on the direction of a recruiting campaign on behalf of my party in the country, and therefore, it has been my privilege, possibly more clearly or more closely than that of many hon. Members, to be able to feel the political temperature of the electorate of the country at the present time.
Our campaign, I am glad to say, is going forward with very considerable success, and what we find, and what is of great interest, in view of the words of the censure Motion, is that wherever our canvassers go they are being well and enthusiastically received. There is no element of hostility in the country visible to our Conservative Party canvassers as they go on with their work.
Therefore, in view of these facts, and in view of the results in the by-elections, which bear this out, I would say that there is no possible justification, in fact or in opinion, for the view that the present Government do not possess the adequate support of the country in carrying out the Measures which they are placing before Parliament. The campaign is still in progress. I do not wish—indeed, I am not in a position—to give any final forecast of its result, but I will


give this to the House, if I may. Who is responsible, more than any other, for the initiation of those Measures which the Opposition are criticising because, they say, they are without adequate support in Parliament or the country? Of course, it is my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
So far as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is concerned, one would have expected that if hostility to his programme was developing in the country, signs of such hostility would be seen in his own constituency. But, in fact, the contrary is the case, and it is interesting to note that in our recruiting campaign the constituency of Woodford has been one of the most successful, in spite of the fact—

Mr. R. J. Mellish: What about Bermondsey?

Mr. McCorquodale: In Bermondsey we have several hundred new members.

Mr. Mellish: Several hundred?

Mr. McCorquodale: Several score, I think I would say, but I am only speaking from memory. I had not intended to delay the House, but in view of what the hon. Gentleman has said, I will tell him that one of the most encouraging features of the campaign has been the remarkable number of new recruits to the Conservative Party in constituencies regarded as Socialist strongholds, and when we come to give the final results early in the new year, hon. Members will realise how considerable that number is.

Dr. H. Morgan: They are playing with you.

Mr. McCorquodale: They are not playing with us; they are paying us. They are joining our party and paying subscriptions which are very welcome.
As I was saying, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister there have been an additional 2,350 new members enrolled in the Conservative Party, and that has happened during the very period when the Measures which the Opposition are criticising as not having the support of the country were introduced and debated in this House. I say that this is proof positive of what the people of this country are thinking of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and his Government.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the Government upon the Measures they have under consideration and which they have brought before the House, and here is proof that they have the support of the majority of the country in carrying them out. Therefore, I suggest that for the Opposition to claim that the Government are not acting with the support of the people of this country is proved to be false.

7.14 p.m.

Mr. George Wigg: The right hon. Member for Epsom (Mr. McCorquodale) told the House that Christmas was the time of good cheer. I agree with him. But it is also the time for fairy tales. However, Christmas has not yet arrived, and so this evening I propose to devote my attention not to Tory fairy tales but to facts.
The Prime Minister this afternoon, inadvertently I think, commented on the defence debate that is to come along in the New Year. He said he hoped that when it came it would be conducted on a non-party basis. It must be either one thing or the other. Either the Prime Minister's memory is failing him, or one must challenge his sincerity, because less than two years ago, in February, 1951, when the international situation was far more grave than it is today and when events in Korea were about as serious as they could possibly be, the Prime Minister treated the defence debate at that time as a petty party question and forced a Division, hoping thereby to gain power. Therefore, the claims of the Prime Minister and of his hon Friends that great Measure today should be treated on a non-party basis and in a different way from that in which they were treated by them when they were the Opposition is, in my judgment, so much humbug.
I turn now to the events of the first day of the steel debate, because in this Motion of censure we are, of course, challenging the competence, not only of the Government, but of the Leader of the House and the Patronage Secretary. This afternoon, the Prime Minister drew very heavily on his imagination, and in saying that I am being very charitable, for I am doing my best to keep within the rules of order. Were I not conscious of having transgressed those rules a few days ago, I should describe what the Prime Minister said this afternoon quite differently.
The Prime Minister came to the House this afternoon and gave an account of the steel debate, having made no attempt whatever to try to find out what the facts were. I say that he deliberately misled not only this House but the country. The facts are that the decision to count out the House was not taken by my right hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench. Nor did I consult them. I came back to the House at 11 o'clock and found that most of the Conservative Party had gone home. Indeed, I could have counted out the House at any time from 11 o'clock onwards that night.
Before drawing attention to the fact that there were not 40 Members present, I did not consult my right hon. Friend who was in charge of the Opposition's case on the Iron and Steel Bill. I did not even consult my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. Jack Jones), who, as a result of my action, did not have a chance to wind up for my side of the House. Indeed, the first thing I did the next day was to go to him and express my personal regret that my action had prevented him from making his speech.
I deliberately refrained from drawing attention to the fact that 40 Members were not present as long as I could in order that the debate should not be interrupted. For my object was not merely to count out the House. That was a simple operation, for there were less than 30 Tories present that night from 11 o'clock onwards.
The real charge of incompetence against the Leader of the House and against the Patronage Secretary has not yet been made out, and the Prime Minister, it seems to me, has not yet taken the trouble to look up what has happened in the past to see what steps should have been taken when the count was called. I would draw the attention of right hon. and hon. Members to a debate which took place on 10th March, 1890, because it is from what happened then that the precedents which govern the proceedings in this matter spring.
You, Mr. Speaker, were kind enough to give the House your guidance on the decision of Mr. Speaker Lowther, but what he said on 13th November, 1912, was, in fact, based upon the discussions which took place on 10th March, 1890. On that occasion the House was counted

out, and the next day the Leader of the Liberal Party, Mr. Gladstone, discovered that, the House having been counted out and the Order, therefore, having lapsed, the lapsed Order had by some miracle again appeared on the Order Paper.
Mr. Gladstone was reluctant to make charges against the Officers of the House, but, as far as the evidence went, it was perfectly clear that on that occasion the Order had been placed on the Paper after the House had risen. A discussion took place on that point, and Mr. W. H. Smith, the Conservative Leader of the House at the time, who had been caught out in just the same way as was the present Leader of the House the other night, came down and made the claim—which was certainly not supported by the evidence—that just at the moment that Mr. Speaker had counted out the House, the Motion to continue the debate the next day had been handed in to the Clerk at the Table.
Therefore, when I had drawn attention to the fact that there were not 40 Members present, I left my place and stood behind Mr. Speaker's Chair in order to see that in 1952 the Conservative Party did not do what the Conservative Party claimed to have done on 10th March, 1890, that is to say that they did not attempt to put down an Order after the House had been counted out. Consequently, I was in the position next morning to come to you, Mr. Speaker, and to say that I could state on oath that on this occasion the Leader of the House and the Patronage Secretary had not put down the Order which appeared on the Order Paper before the House was counted out, and for that reason it was out of order to resume the debate.
The charge of incompetence against the Leader of the House and the Patronage Secretary rests therefore on two counts. They were not in the House when the count was called, and therefore they did not know how many hon. Members were in the House but perhaps they can be forgiven for that. The second charge is of neglect of duty arising from their ignorance of procedure. They did not know what to do when the count was called.
I do not suppose that one can expect to catch the same mice with the same bit of cheese in a foreseeable time in the future, so there is no harm in my guiding the Chief Whip on the action he should take in similar circumstances if the House


is counted out again. He should obtain an Order Paper, write his name on the top of it and in the few minutes of the count hand it to the Clerk at the Table and thus ensure that the debate will go on. But this action must be taken before the House is counted out.
The Tory Chief Whip did not know what to do. He did not know what had happened, and the result was that the House was counted out before he gathered his wits. On this showing every hon. Member therefore must agree that the Leader of the House and the Patronage Secretary are guilty of incompetence. But their incompetence is not limited merely to those two actions and their failure to know what to do in those circumstances. One of the reasons they get into difficulties about their business is that they have never understood the object of the tasks which face them.
Their job is to get the Government business through. They do not need to be "Smart Alecs" and to score points. The Leader of the House and the Patronage Secretary spend no time in the House. They do not know what is going on. Time and time again the Patronage Secretary has come in and moved the closure when, if he had only waited 5 or 15 minutes at the most, he could have got the Government's business. But, being, an arrogant "Smart Alec," he comes into the Chamber and it appeals to his adolescent sense of humour to move the closure because he thinks it shows that he is a big boy now. His hon. Friends pay the penalty by losing their beauty sleep.
I am all for making this House into a workshop to ensure that legislation is examined with meticulous care and that the wheels go round. But it is asking a little too much of human nature for the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Boothby) to come to the House now and plead for co-operation. After all, co-operation is not a one-way street. If there is to be co-operation there must be give and take. There is no sign of it from the opposite side of the House. They do all the taking and none of the giving.
At the conclusion of his speech the Prime Minister talked about the circumstances in which the last election was fought. Obviously it rankled him more than a little that his majority was not as

great as he had hoped it would be. I can understand that, having poured money out like water, having had the use of the organs of the Press, having had the advantage of the bias in favour of the Tory Party that exists in the B.B.C., and having woken up to find only a small majority and not a working majority, he should think that that is too bad. His rancour led him to complain about lies during the last election. That seemed to me to be about the funniest thing that has happened in this House for a long time, funny, of course, because it was unconscious humour on the part of the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister pretends not to realise that his party gained power by making the most of every single difficulty that confronted this country in the last few years. The truth never worried them very much, but now that they have come to power they are not so very happy because they find that their office entails obligations. So they want us to lie down and let them do their will without effective opposition. As far as I am concerned, they are not going to do it. I stopped their gallop last Tuesday, and I shall stop it every time that I can—not of course by this same method, but I shall not find much difficulty for the Patronage Secretary is easy meat. In conclusion, may I say that I was anxious to speak in this debate so that I could tell the truth about the competence of the Patronage Secretary and the Leader of the House. I hope that by so doing it will make it difficult for the Prime Minister to move them, for they are indeed great assets to the Labour Party.

7.24 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel Walter Elliot: It has been said that no one is ever written down save by himself or talked down save by himself, and the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) is perhaps the most striking example of it that we have had for a long time. If I may say so, the country really is not interested in what Mr. Gladstone said in 1890, or in the frightfully clever tactics that the hon. Member for Dudley employed in sitting opposite, then running out of the House and running back to watch if anyone wrote his name on a piece of paper and handed it to the Clerk at the Table.
The country is interested in bigger things. The person with whom I had real sympathy during the hon. Member's speech was the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), who has not sat through a speech like that for a very long time. The interesting speech in this debate came from the hon. Member for Yardley (Mr. Usborne). One of the difficulties in which we are placed over the count is that our difficulties in this Chamber are the symptoms of a graver malaise. The House is in a difficulty because the country is in a difficulty. The country has not decided on one side or the other in the party system, and consequently the House has not a decisive majority on one side or the other.

Mr. S. Silverman: Mr. S. Silverman rose—

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: If the hon. Member for once would allow one speech to go on without a monologue of interruptions, he would have the perfectly new sensation of listening to what a speech in the House of Commons sounds like. If he cannot do that, let him go outside. There he can indulge in a monologue to his heart's content and then return and, if he catches your eye, Mr. Speaker, make his own speech.
The difficulty in the House is the difficulty of divining the mind of the country and, as was truly said by the hon. Member for Yardley, the difficulty is that we shall be in this position for a very considerable time. That is the interest of this debate. We are here discussing ourselves. This is not an occasion for the exchange of party arguments about whether the Iron and Steel Bill and the Transport Bill are justified or unjustified. There are many opportunities of doing that. This is the opportunity of discussing how Parliament grapples with the situation of a narrow majority. That is a real problem—a problem of the machinery of democracy.
Like everything else, democracy is an idea which has to be translated into facts. The parties are the jaws of the vice in which the country grips the problems which the country has to consider, and if the vice is too loose or too tight then the tools available cannot be properly used upon it. I make no complaint about the party system, about its sharp

or dull edge, but we must consider it in connection with how we are to keep the country prosperous and how we are to tackle the desperate problems which are preoccupying the electorate.
The reason the electorate is unmoved by many of the battles going on in this Chamber just now, is that it has more to think about. It is studying vast problems such as those raised by Professor Arnold Toynbee in his present series of talks on the B.B.C. entitled, "The World and the West"—with the problems which we see in the East, in Africa, far and wide.
On such questions I should be glad to hear the views of the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale. I think that he would have a most interesting contribution to make if, to use his own words, he were to ascend into the stratosphere. He has made speeches on occasion which would do honour to any deliberative assembly in the whole world. I remember one such speech of his which received high compliment from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
The electorate is preoccupied with the frightful question of the capital investment programme. How are we to find enough money to re-equip this country, and, more particularly, to re-equip the country and to spare enough money, or rather capital goods—for when I say "money" I am only using it as a term—to equip the vast territories of the East, and the territories in the Colonial Empire for which we are particularly responsible?
I have said before in this House, and I say it again, that the success of the Soviet countries in their colonial empire—for the six Asiatic Republics are a colonial empire—is due not to the political revolution but to the industrial revolution. Iron, steel and electricity are the things for which the new countries long. We have to consider how these goods can be spared from here. In the face of these problems, some of the tactics which have been described tonight are not up to the level of the emergency which faces us.

Mr. Paget: May I interrupt, for I have great sympathy with what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has said? In the light of what he has said, how can he justify the Iron and Steel Bill or the Transport Bill being pushed through


when they are utterly irrelevant to these matters, knowing that those two Bills can only be had at the price of a break-down of all co-operation between the parties? We made it clear from the start that if the Government dropped those, they would have co-operation in other matters.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: Let me take one further step further, or backward, in history. Exactly the same point was made when the Steel Bill was being put into force after the country had decided against it. That was the argument which was brought forward by the present Prime Minister, and I think it was well supported by the electoral figures, let alone the Parliamentary situation. The great Socialist majority of the 1945 Parliament had disappeared. Everybody knew it had disappeared. As the right hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Strachey) said, the electorate had looked at the Socialist programme and said, "No more today thank you."

Mr. Michael Foot: Would the right hon. and gallant Gentleman agree that the actual procedure of the Steel Bill was that it would have been passed in the 1945 Parliament had it not been for the intervention of the House of Lords? The Act was put on the Statute Book. It was agreed beforehand that the Bill should go forward supposing a Labour Government were returned at the General Election, and therefore no further time of the House of Commons was involved except one day's debate to put the Bill into operation. Therefore, the two cases that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has given are not comparable in any sense whatsoever.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: If I may say so, I hoped for more from the hon. Member. The fact is that on these narrow technical points which he is making we can carry on the argument all night. I only say this, which I do not think he will deny, that the great popular sweep that brought the Labour Party, not only into office but into power, in 1945 was not repeated in 1950. Nobody denies that, and I do not think the hon. Gentleman can get away from the actual figures. It is no use saying that the Conservative Party today has no majority in votes. I think there is a small, Conservative, majority in Scotland on votes; not perhaps in England and Wales. On that basis

we should be entitled to put the Steel Bill into operation in Scotland and not in England, which would be ridiculous. We should not be considering the narrow points tonight.
This Parliamentary system worked in the 19th century. It solved Disraeli's problem of the Two Nations. The nation is today a homogeneous whole, without the great gaps between rich and poor which were the terror of the Victorians. It may be that further adjustments will have to be made, but by and large that great change has been carried through by the Parliamentary machine. The problem of East and West still has to be grappled with. The problems of capital investments and of the dollar gap still have to be grappled with by this Parliament.
It is not enough to say, as one hon. Member opposite said, that the way to deal with it is, as the Labour Government did in 1950, by not introducing controversial Measures. We cannot freeze up the machinery of this country for an indefinite period, running perhaps over many years, during which this equal balance of parties remains. The last person who would wish to do that is the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale, who is to wind up this debate. Somehow or other the process of adjustment must go on, or else this country ossifies, fossilises and dies.
That is what is worrying the electorate. They are not quite sure. The electorate is profoundly disturbed and disquieted at the long-term prospect in front of this country. Everyone knows that. Believe me, I have come into this House the hard way. I have had a good many years of electoral experience on Clydeside. I know something about the views of the proletariat in this country. From the highest to the lowest our people are concerned about the position in which we now find ourselves. They regard much of our actions here as the hysteria of the sick room.

Mr. I. O. Thomas: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman think that the great public disquiet which he is talking about is being allayed by the policy of the Government in introducing Measures for handing back road transport and publicly-owned steel industry to private enterprise? Is that the remedy for that public disquiet that he is talking about?

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: I cannot have made myself clear to the hon. Gentleman. Everyone knows that it has been the complaint of hon. Members opposite that the public is showing singularly little interest in the campaign either for the nationalisation or the de-nationalisation of the great industries of the country. We believe—and we said so at election time—that, in our view, these changes ought to be carried through.

Mr. Thomas: Why the public disquiet?

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot: If the hon. Gentleman does not know that the ordinary woman fears that her son or brother may be taken away to the war in Korea, that the ordinary man in the street fears that the tax-gatherer will sweep away resources which ought to be invested in making his factory more efficient, that the ordinary business man travelling abroad and coming home is worrying because he feels an uneasy sensation in the world outside, wondering, "Is this the next of the great Empires to sink without a trace?", it is no use arguing with the hon. Member across the Floor of the House.
I do not think that we can deal with this problem merely by the device of a Committee on procedure.
There are many reasons for looking into this question by means of some Parliamentary device, but all Parliamentary devices are worked by the people who work them, by the spirit in which they work. I am not specially complaining about the tactics of the Opposition at the present time, nor am I apologising for the battle that I and many other hon. Members fought in the 1945 Parliament—for example, on the gas nationalisation Bill. I believe in the saying, "In defeat, defiance" and that a small band, such as we were then, should protest against what it thinks to be an injudicious act on the part of the Government. We used the machinery of Parliament as far as we could go. I do not apologise for that. I ask for no quarter and I give no quarter. I am a fighting Parliamentarian and I take the rough with the smooth. But this novel problem is one which the House of Commons as a whole should be examining and reviewing.
The "usual channels" ought to run much more smoothly than they do at present. It is a great pity, for example, that the machinery for pairing is breaking down. I agree with what was said by

my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Boothby) and the hon. Member for Yardley that if we turn this House into a House of whole-time politicians, coming here at 10 o'clock in the morning and sitting here until 10 o'clock at night, day after day, week after week, and month after month, we destroy Parliament.
The hon. Member for Dudley said "Is it not necessary for the working of Parliament that Members should be present?" It is necessary that some Members should be present but that many more Members should be outside; in the country, keeping in touch with their constituents, or travelling about the world, getting in touch with people in other countries, so that they can come back here to act as an expert jury in deciding great problems to which they can make contributions of special value.
It is a complete fallacy to suggest that the great problems of today can be solved by us sitting here in rows, glaring at each other like dummies and being frowned upon by the Chief Whips. We can realise that by the size of our Chamber, which is built—and built intentionally—so that it is not big enough to hold us all. The idea is intentionally that we should not all be here at the same time, but that some of us should be out and about, returning here to give the benefits of our collective experience to the House as a whole.
We have, therefore, to examine our procedure. But we certainly have to examine our spirit. I think we must risk more than we have done the handling of Bills upstairs in Committee, with the knowledge that it is not to be regarded as a breach of faith if the Government, having had a vote against them in Committee, reverse that vote on the Floor of the House. The purpose of a Committee is to examine and report to the whole House, and if the whole House does not agree with the decision of the Committee the whole House has a perfect right to reverse the verdict of that Committee. I think many more Bills should be examined upstairs and be brought down here without there being a complaint about a breach of faith if the Government reverse the vote.
I agree with what one of my hon. Friends said, that above all things the duty of a Government is to govern. The worst of all things is to have a Parliament


like the old Polish Diet, where nothing worked, because anyone could stop business by saying, "I do not agree." It is essential that the majority should rule. The rule of unanimity or no action which is paralysing the United Nations would certainly paralyse this House if it worked here. The Government have to introduce their Measures and they have to take their chance in using the responsibility which the electors have handed to them; which is certainly not the responsibility of sittting still and hoping that something will turn up.
I agree with the hon. Member for Yardley that when the verdict has been given we must all accept it. That is one of the difficulties of the Opposition just now. We have felt ourselves when in opposition that by some method or other the multiplication table could be altered, and that by heavy pressure six times six could be turned into 37 instead of 36. We have felt it when we have been within reach of defeating the Government and have then been frustrated to find the Government Whips turning up on the right-hand side and reading out their majority figures once again.
We shall not alter the present balance of parties by speeches in this House or by obstructive and harrying tactics. We are not thought any better of by the country for doing that. We have to learn to live with each other. That is the fundamental task before this Parliament.
It is all very well to say that there should be more give and take and that we ought to give more on our side. That was said when we were in opposition. We have to work it out. It is a slow process, but the fundamental fact is that the country is in great danger. The great adventure on which England has embarked—buttressed and reinforced by Scotland and Wales is in jeopardy. This huge community here has been brought into existence, this perilous state produced in which 50 million people are living in this tiny island with the prospect of another six million mouths to feed in a few years' time. It is an adventure such as no country in the world has ever tried to carry out.
I remember a great and wise man—Gilbert Murray—saying to me, "This is like the position of ancient Sparta, which had two kings. One went to war and the other slandered him at home." It

brought Sparta down. It will bring this country down, too, if we continue it too long, before one of the most perilous situations any country has ever faced. One cannot have an all-in wrestling match on a tight-rope.
We have tonight a valuable opportunity, not merely for indulging in the ordinary rough and tumble thwackings of Motion of censure, but for examining our own machinery and our attitude towards far deeper and wider problems. Unless we take advantage of it, this great opportunity will have been very largely wasted. I do not think it should be wasted.

7.47 p.m.

Mr. Michael Stewart: The immediate occasion for this Motion of censure was a double failure by those Members of the Government who are immediately responsible for the conduct of Parliamentary business. The first failure was the failure to keep a House, and then there was an attempt to remedy the delay in business which was caused by that failure by obliging the House to take two days' business in one day. It is interesting to notice that that is the immediate occasion of this Motion of censure, because those two errors typify the great deficiency in the Government's attitude towards the House and Parliamentary business that has been apparent ever since they came into office.
The first error—the failure to keep a House—is an error of slackness and the second error—the attempt to burden the House with two days' business in one—is an error of panic and rush. What this House has had to put up with time and again in this Session and the last is this repeated jerky alternation on the part of the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip casually letting business go by, constantly neglecting their duty to keep a House and neglecting their duty to pay attention to their own time-table, and when they realise what has happened requiring the House to be overburdened with business in order to make up for their errors.
This Motion of censure has come about because, although that jerkiness—that pairing of the error of slackness and the error of rush—has occurred notably on this occasion, it has been typical of the whole handing of Parliamentary business. It comes from a party which, when in


opposition, was repeatedly telling the House and the country how essential it was to restore the rights of Parliament as against the Executive, and it is significant to notice, in view of what they said about that, that this business that was jammed up and put down at the fag-end of another day was a piece of business which any party really concerned with the rights of Parliament as against the Executive would have taken special care to see was given adequate time—that is the provisions dealing with emergency legislation.
The Prime Minister has given us some sort of explanation of how these errors came to be committed. The Prime Minister indeed has very great gifts of narrative. He has been able to describe in writing an enormous number of episodes in such language that one would suppose that he himself had been there as an eyewitness, and this afternoon, again, we heard this capacity to describe with more vividness than accuracy events in which he himself was not a participant.
The Prime Minister said the trouble was partly due to the fact that we had had a very heated debate on Kenya. As a matter of fact, the debate on Kenya was not heated; it was an extremely serious and sober debate. Moreover, whatever the character of the debate, it is surely an extraordinary proposition to say that, because certain hon. Members had to spend an unexpected three hours debating a very serious situation in the Colonial Empire, they therefore could not be expected to be in their places for an important Bill a few hours later. Yet this is what the Prime Minister was telling the House.
He was also saying that there had been no interest in the Steel Bill on this side of the House, although he combined that with the statement that there had been very careful planning of the count. As a matter of fact, neither of those statements was true, and, in any event, they contradicted each other, because if the count had been the result of a carefully conserted plan, such a plan could not have been carried through by people who were not interested in frustrating the Government's intentions on the Steel Bill. As anyone who studies the record of the debate will discover, we were getting to a position in which there had to be consecutive speeches from this side of the House because the party opposite could no longer provide any speakers on the

Bill. This, again, was a Bill for which the Government claimed there was very great need as part of the general task of setting the nation free from the bonds of Socialism.
One or two other remarks which the Prime Minister made illustrate, I think, the Government's attitude to Parliament as a whole. He referred to the count of the House as a piece of misbehaviour on the part of the Opposition. As a matter of fact, it is a piece of Parliamentary procedure provided in our Standing Orders, and it is entirely within the rights of any hon. Member to invoke it, but because it does not fit in with the plans of the Conservative Party it is described as misbehaviour.
The right hon. Gentleman also said that he had hoped that after the Kenya debate there would be no further faction that evening. Faction is a word which is used to describe any disagreement with the opinions of the Conservative Party on the steel industry. He further said that the debate today was on a mere technicality. The question whether Government supporters should show sufficient respect for the House to attend its sittings, the question whether the House should be required to do two days' business in the time properly required for one—apparently these were mere technicalities. I do not think that would be the view of the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) who has just made so interesting and dignified a speech.
This obiter dicta of the Prime Minister, these words in which, perhaps unconciously, he revealed the frame of mind of this Government towards Parliament, show us where the real trouble lies and why this situation has arisen. We have here a Government which does not regard the proper conduct of Parliamentary business as of any particular importance. It is concerned simply to push through a particular programme and has made no study of how a Government should deal with an Opposition and how to deal with Parliamentary procedure when it is carrying through highly controversial legislation.
I would make this submission: that it is the job of a Government, and particularly the job of the Leader of the House and the Chief Whip, to consider what is the proper way of getting a controversial


programme through. I think there are two elements in that task. One is that there must be a certain measure of consultation between the Government and the Opposition. This was urged by the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Boothby) and by the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove, as well as by other speakers. But what degree of consultation have we had from this Government?
A little while ago the House was being asked to pass a Guillotine Motion when there had not even been an attempt to consult between Government and Opposition as to how much time should be spent on the Committee stage of the Bill—and none of the right hon. or hon. Gentlemen who have spoken from the benches opposite this afternoon, opposing this Motion of censure and saying that we ought to have a certain degree of consultation and give and take between Government and Opposition, were then prepared to get up and protest about the introduction of the Guillotine upon a Bill before there had been any attempt to reach a Time-table by means of consultation.
I am bound to say that, although there must be a certain minimum of consultation, it is important that the House should not overdo this idea that there should be consultation, agreement and give and take between the two sides.

Mr. Harmar Nicholls: An offer was made of one day for the Kenya debate rather than breaking into the steel debate. That is the sort of consultation which the hon. Gentleman says does not exist.

Mr. Stewart: We were asking for a debate at that time on what the Prime Minister himself described as an extremely critical situation. To offer a debate at the wrong time is not consultation. I think we can overdo this idea that there should be give and take and generous agreement between the two sides. Some measure of consultation there must be, and the Government would be in a stronger position in resisting this Motion of censure if they had made any serious attempt to get such consultation; but when we have the necessary minimum of agreement to make it possible for business to be done and ideas to be exchanged, then the Government must expect the Opposition resolutely and

steadily to oppose and to use for the purposes of opposition all the opportunities which the rules of the House give them.
This House does not best consult its dignity by being in a state of elegant freedom. It best consults its dignity by being alive. Our constituents did not send us here to enter into elegant discussions with one another for our own private convenience. They elected us to one side of the House or the other because they hold, and they believe we hold, certain very strong, profound, sincere and widely-differing views between one side of the House and the other on questions of major importance.
At the moment the world, the whole of mankind, is going through a gigantic social revolution. In some countries that takes a violent and terrible form. We in this country enjoy the great blessing of being able to use the comparatively civilised form of Parliamentary democracy, but let the people who elect their Parliament imagine that the differences between the two sides are, after all, nothing very much and that we can get round them in this way and that, and Parliamentary democracy will be in danger.
That is what a persistence in the kind of treatment which this Government have given Parliament would, in fact, do. That is what, consciously or unconsciously, the attitude of the Leader of the House towards Parliament is saying. It is saying, "Look here; we have a programme to put through, and it is very unsporting of you to get in the way. You are interfering with the proper Parliamentary processes." The Government have not yet grasped the idea that, subject to a bare minimum of consultation and agreement, they must expect resolute, tenacious and skilful opposition; and it is their job to find out how to meet it without starving Parliament of business on one day and piling two days' business upon it next day. If the Chief Whip and the Leader of the House cannot do that, they had better give way to people who can. We were able to do it during the six years of the Labour Government. It can be done if there are competent people at the direction of events and if, behind them, there is a party which is firmly convinced of the rightness of what it is doing.
I wonder if we have got that, because another cause of the trouble is the profound irrelevance to the real needs of the country and of mankind of most of the legislation that has been put before us by this Government. We listened with very great pleasure, as we always do, to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove. He gave us a very thoughtful piece of political philosophy applied to the circumstances of the present age, but, as was apparent when one or two of my hon. Friends intervened, what relevance was there between his serious consideration of world events and the rather shabby and ill-thought out legislation the present Government are trying to drive through the Parliamentary machine in order to placate the financial interests behind the Conservative Party?
Finally, I would say that that puts the finger on another cause of the trouble—the decline of the standards of the party opposite. There was a time when it prided itself on being a party that maintained a gentlemanly and scholarly tradition that would have paid the greatest regard to the great history and traditions of this House, and would not have handled affairs in the way they have been handled in the last few months by the present Leader of the House. But what has been happening to the Conservative Party in recent years is the increasing commercialisation of it. It has been turned into a kind of cheap-Jack emporium.
What the right hon. and gallant Gentleman reminds me of—if he will forgive me for saying so—is this. One sometimes used to see striding along the floor of a cheap-Jack emporium some distinguished veteran soldier employed there as a shop walker in an attempt by the management to add, by his distinguished appearance, with his medals of campaigns on his chest, some degree of tone to a dubious establishment. But the gap between the voices of reason that have come from one or two speakers on that side and the grinding of the commercial bargain between the Conservative Party and the interests who want these Bills is apparent all the time, and it is there that we find one of the great causes of the mishandling of Parliamentary

business, on which we are now passing our censure.

8.3 p.m.

Mr. J. J. Astor: I think the hon. Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart) took a rather shabby view of the party on this side, and I think he completely failed to differentiate between a party that is alive and one that is fighting. Maybe the Socialist Party has to fight within itself to prove it is alive, but I do think that this party can be alive without fighting an internal battle.

Mr. Manuel: Where are they?

Mr. Astor: Hon. Members are here. There are certainly as many hon. Members on this side as there are on the other. That denotes the streak which runs through the party opposite. In order to show their constituents how clever they are, and how alive, they have to have internal fights.
I would address my remarks to procedure. I am probably the most inexperienced Member of this Chamber, and, therefore, I speak in all humility about procedure. I had thought at the beginning of this debate that my ignorance of procedure prevented me from appreciating some of the tactics that my side and the side opposite used, but I gather that there is general unrest and discontent at the way Parliamentary government is proceeding and has proceeded for the last two years.
I address my remarks to both sides, for I am not convinced that my party would behave differently if it was in Opposition or that the Opposition would behave differently if they were in power. Both parties are guilty of having used the Guillotine, and anyone interested in democracy must consider that a crime; and both parties are guilty of having harassed the Government, maybe unduly.
I submit that this Motion of censure is evidence of a far deeper and more profound sickness than the mere competence or incompetence of two personalities or a number of personalities in the Government. I submit that the trouble may lie in the fact that our whole legislative procedure was geared to cope with events before the war, and it has not been recalibrated and re-adjusted to meet postwar events. I think no hon. Member would disagree that under the laws of


probability there will be small majorities in the foreseeable future, and there will also be more legislation than there was before the war. The result is that whichever party is in power the legislative programme is so full there is a small margin for unexpected debates, and the whole emphasis is put on tactics and not on serious, statesmanlike discussion.
I submit that the result of all-night sittings brings discredit to both parties. I was never one to think that harassing by my party when the Opposition were in power brought credit. I do not think it did. I do not think harassing or all-night sittings bring credit to the Opposition at the moment. I submit that this Chamber, that has hitherto been the envy and admiration of every democratic country in the world, becomes after a certain hour in the night a chamber of horrors—and I say this in all seriousness. I think that the horrors are not seen until next day.

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: Some of them.

Mr. Astor: Some of them may be seen. They may be seen half asleep, and voting without knowing what they are voting for. I think right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Benches on both sides have misappreciated the extent to which the public criticise this House at the present time. I believe that they may well ask, are right hon. and hon. Members, who are quite incapable of putting their own House in order and running their own business in a sane way, capable of running the country's business? I think that they do ask that question and are gradually coming to the conclusion that they are not able to run the country's business in a sane and proper way.
I suggest that it would be far from the thought and wish of right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Benches on both sides, if in 10 years' time, it could be correctly said that it was the leading politicians between 1945 and 1960 who allowed the mother of Parliaments to be so discredited and degraded in the eyes of the public that the status of Parliament fell. I personally believe that in this issue the public are ahead of the politicians. I think that that does happen sometimes. I think people who are outside any organisation sometimes see tendencies and trends in it more clearly than the people

involved in the day-to-day work of the organisation. I believe that the present status of parliamentary government in this country has slipped and is slipping, and it is up to—

Mr. Norman Dodds: If this is so—and it is a very serious matter—how does the hon. Gentleman explain that the percentages of the people going to the polls have been getting higher at every successive election?

Mr. Astor: I think that the political education of this country is increasing and will increase, but I do not think that the estimation of the politicians themselves or of the way they behave has gone up. That has gone down, and is going down, and quite rightly too, because I cannot see—and I say this in all sincerity—how Ministers can conceivably attack the problems before them if they do not get to bed till five six, seven, eight and nine o'clock in the morning, any more than other hon. Members who have other responsibilities can bring clear minds to their business after these all-night Sittings. No one can be efficient if they have been up all night. I suggest that these all-night sittings result from the fact that the machine is not geared to present-day circumstances, and I hope the Government will set up a Select Committee to investigate the possibility, not of a radical change but of a re-adjustment of the present system to meet the conditions of the day.

Mr. Dryden Brook: Will the hon. Gentleman use his influence with his own side in order that the first step shall be that the House meets at a reasonable hour—say nine o'clock?

Mr. Astor: I, personally, support the hon. Member for Yardley (Mr. Usborne). I think that would be absolutely fatal.

Mr. William Hamilton: To the businessmen.

Mr. Astor: I think that every hon. Member should have other responsibilities than those he has here and to his constituents. If he has not, how can he know what goes on in the country?

Mr. Dodds: Let me tell the hon. Gentleman. One way to know is to live in the constituency so that the people are always with the Member, whether it is Saturday, Sunday or any other day.

Mr. Astor: I, personally, believe that it would be fatal if hon. Members became virtually an extension of the Civil Service and had to meet and stay here all day.

Mr. Charles Pannell: The hon. Gentleman takes the view that hon. Members ought to have other responsibilities outside this House. Some of us come from the fitter's bench, where we worked in overalls. Does he suggest that I should start at six o'clock in the morning, do an eight-hour shift and then come here? Does not the fact that we represent such people give us enough title to sit here, rather than that we should represent the rentier class?

Mr. Astor: The qualification of having been in industry is, in itself, obviously adequate and the best reason for being in this House. I am not saying it is not. What I suggest is that we cannot conceivably get young men to enter politics and public life if there is not time for them to have other responsibilities as well.

Mr. M. Turner-Samuels: Would the hon. Gentleman conduct his own business by starting it in the evening and then, on occasions, going through the night in order to finish it?

Mr. Astor: That is exactly what I am saying. The hon. and learned Gentleman is supporting my argument.

Mr. Turner-Samuels: On the contrary. My hon. Friend put to the hon. Gentleman the proposition whether we ought not to start at a reasonable hour, and do a day's work, from nine o'clock to ten o'clock. I understand the hon. Gentleman to oppose that, and I am asking whether he would run his own business by regularly starting work in the evening, and often going on through the night.

Mr. Astor: If the hon. and learned Gentleman would let me finish he might understand what I am getting at. I do not think the House should meet early. I am not advocating anything like that, or any radical change. No doubt the House could meet a little earlier and not go on quite so late, stopping at midnight, or something like that. I hope the Government will set up a Select Committee to investigate this.
Whatever that Select Committee did, even if it made a negative report, even if it said the situation is unadjustable, at least it would show the public that Members are conscious of this sickness, this malaise which is coming over Parliamentary Government. If the Select Committee made some suggestions they could be tried. If the usual channels are blocked and there is only a trickle through them, surely we ought to unblock them. I, personally, am rather horrified at the smugness of hon. and right hon. Members who feel that the public are so pleased with the way business is conducted in this House, because I do not think they are.

Mr. M. Follick: Does the hon. Gentleman know that last Thursday, after going all through the night, at quarter to nine I initiated the Adjournment debate, and that we had a very good discussion, with three Ministers in attendance?

Mr. Astor: The hon. Gentleman is outstanding. He must have had a lot of experience of staying up late when he was young.
I feel that both parties and the whole Parliamentary system are discredited by the present procedure, and I hope that a Select Committee is set up, because it could certainly do no harm and might conceivably do some good.

8.16 p.m.

Mr. Malcolm MacMillan: I am rather sorry that the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Astor) took so much time criticising what he called the "Mother of Parliaments," and criticising our exercise of the freedom which Members in this House have exercised immemorially. I am sorry that he did not attack the checks which have been put more recently—to get back to the very narrow point we are discussing today—upon the freedom of speech of Members in this House, rather than assist those critics outside the House who make it their job, as part of their propaganda, to try to undermine the confidence of the electorate in the House of Commons.
One could call this House, not the "Mother of Parliaments" but, in a really democratic sense, the "daughter of Parliaments," because this House only started to function with a membership elected by universal franchise a few years


ago; it is only beginning to work in a really democratic sense. In that context I can understand the hon. Gentleman and his friends assisting those irresponsible critics outside who want further to undermine the confidence of the electorate in their own Parliament. But that is a dangerous game, and the more Members of Parliament play that dangerous game, the more the authority of Parliament and respect for it on the part of the electorate will be reduced.

Mr. Astor: Is the hon. Gentleman then satisfied in his own mind that the procedure in the House of Commons as it now is—and I advocated no radical change—is 100 per cent. pleasing to the public?

Mr. MacMillan: I did not suggest that at all. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would have a look at what I said in HANSARD in the morning when he is regretfully reading his own speech over again.
There are so many people going around this country and, I regret, now going about the House of Commons—it is all some of them have to do here—saying to Parliament, to quote a now famous phrase of recent coinage, "Shut your gob." The more people go about saying that Members of Parliament should shut up, should stop talking so much in the House of Commons—though I do not know what else they are supposed to do in the House of Commons—the more they undermine its authority and its dignity and ultimately the confidence of the electorate in the House.
After listening to speeches at a very high level indeed, like those of the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot) and my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham, East (Mr. M. Stewart), I apologise for having to ask the House to permit me to come down to the level of the Prime Minister's speech this afternoon, but it is necessary that we should defend ourselves against that sort of soap-box attack upon our Parliamentary institutions and our right to free speech as an Opposition in this House, which it is our function to perform. It is necessary to reply to him in every way that we can.
One of the few things that we can do to defend ourselves at this critically dangerous time against the Tories' attack upon the freedom of speech of Members in the House is to put a Motion of Censure of this kind on the Order Paper.

The Prime Minister was so obviously resentful of it that that in itself may have reduced his speech to a lower level of quality and content than even he intended.
The Prime Minister spent a great deal of time during his speech in twitting the Opposition about splits and differences on this side of the House. He should be the last man to talk about splits and differences in any political party in the House. The split between himself and his friends was as wide as the Gangway on his side of the House year after year, as we all remember. I remember the ugly looks he used to get, without any reference to physical features, from the Secretary of State for Scotland, from the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove and from the present Chancellor of the Exchequer all through the years when he was kept at arm's length from the rest of his comrades and colleagues on those benches in the days when they were in Government before the war. It comes very poorly from the right hon. Gentleman to talk about splits and differences, and perhaps he might forget the jibe for just a little while. But he should not be allowed to forget that he himself was one of the causes of the splits in his own party in those days.
Today, the Prime Minister made the point in defence of the absence of his hon. Friends on the occasion of the count that he himself was better employed sleeping than de-nationalising steel. At last, we got something there on which we could all agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and we hope that he will carry that statement of policy, as it may be—and as, no doubt, was also his defence of the absence of his colleagues—into effect by doing something about scrapping that unfortunate and unseemly Bill.
The Prime Minister then went on to attack the Opposition for performing their duty in regard to what he called "routine legislation." But that routine legislation, as he called it, contained a number of most important provisions affecting millions of people in this country and their welfare. I noticed with regret that the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove, an ex-Secretary of State for Scotland, who made an excellent speech tonight, managed to go right round the world, to come back to England, and then, as a final little afterthought, to remember that Scotland existed.
It seems sad that one has to remind an ex-Secretary of State for Scotland that, even if he regards Scotland as the weakest link in that chain of nations round the world which he referred to in his speech, the chain is no stronger than its weakest link and that if Scotland is its weakest link, it is because it inherited a great deal of neglect from the days in which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was Secretary of State for Scotland.
Perhaps I may refer to the importance that even the Tories attached before the War to the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. Any Member can go into the Library and look, for instance, at the discussions in November, 1936, when we discussed the then Bill from 6.29 p.m. to 6 o'clock in the morning. In 1938, again we had a full discussion, by arrangement with the then Chief Whip, Captain Margesson. Indeed he appealed to us, only after we had gone on for about two hours already on the Money Resolution in connection with the Bill, that we should not go on too long because he wanted to get that part of the Bill through in order to facilitate full discussion in the Committee stage. When we came to that stage, we did indeed get a full day's discussion on it.
That was the feeling in those days, even of Captain Margesson, and we know what a real tough guy we used to think he was as Chief Whip in this House. But if he were in the House today, even he would be shocked at the way in which his colleagues have tried to narrow down freedom and rights of discussion, not least on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill.
Look at the names of some of those who spoke on the Bill in the House at that time: James Maxton, Jack Lawson, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Ben Smith. Viscount Wolmer, Mr. Ridley and the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Boothby). Actually, a Liberal, Wilfrid Roberts, was allowed to speak on that occasion. There were also Sir Robert Home and a number of Members on each side of the House, including the present Minister of Transport, the present Minister of Housing and Local Government and the Minister of Labour of that time, the notorious Ernest Brown.
In passing, it will be quite interesting for the Secretary of State for Scotland to notice this little coincidence. I am sorry that his Joint Under-Secretaries are not present tonight to listen to this little quotation. Speaking on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill on 17th November, 1936, Mr. Ernest Brown intervened at a certain point in the discussion to say:
I think it may be for the convenience of the House if I say a few words at this point."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th November, 1936; Vol. 317, c. 1670.]
Then the discussion went on for some hours afterwards—a full and interesting discussion.
On the occasion of the present Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, one of the Joint Under-Secretaries of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Fife, East (Mr. Henderson Stewart), got up and used these words:
It might be for the convenience of the Committee if I intervened for a few moments at this point."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd December, 1952; Vol. 508, c. 1474.]
Those are almost exactly the same words, learnt parrot-fashion from his old mentor and the party's prophet, Ernest Brown. The hon. Member for Fife, East was only too apt a pupil, because on this occasion, after he had uttered the words, his party did not have the decency that even Ernest Brown had to continue the discussion. They closured it, and then proceeded further to move, "That this be the Schedule to the Bill." From that moment, there was no possibility of discussing Scotland or anything else.
There was the same procedure when we came to the Transport Bill the other night. We had, I think, about 52 or 53 minutes of our valuable Parliamentary time devoted to the whole of the problems of Scotland in respect of road transport under the Bill.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. James Stuart): We did have about a couple of hours—I have not worked out the time—on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill on Scottish matters.

Mr. Manuel: No. The right hon. Gentleman ought to be ashamed of himself.

Mr. MacMillan: To the best of my memory, we had somewhere about one hour over the discussion of all the Scottish topics.

Mr. Stuart: I have not worked it out.

Mr. MacMillan: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman has not forgotten how many things there were under the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. There were for instance, the Tenancy of Shops (Scotland) Act, 1949, the Education (Exemptions) (Scotland), Act, 1947, and the Rents of Furnished Houses (Scotland) Act, and these are extremely important to the people that the Tory Party are supposed to be looking after. Think of the tens of thousands of small shopkeepers that the Tories look after in Scotland with the help of Lord Woolton and his friends. They went undiscussed. Think, too, of the many things that were completely unmentioned that night because the Secretary of State for Scotland and his friends thought, like the Prime Minister, that it was more important to go home to bed than to be legislating in this Chamber. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] He said it himself, and I am merely quoting what he said.

Sir William Darling: Why did the hon. Member and his hon. Friends refuse to speak up for Scotland by not going into the Division Lobby?

Mr. MacMillan: The hon. Gentleman could have come and found out for himself. He can look up HANSARD. The reference was to the occasion—

Sir W. Darling: I was hoping to find a more reliable source of information—or, at least, one that was equally reliable. I ask again: Did the hon. Member, with his hon. Friends, refrain from speaking up for Scotland in the Division Lobby that night?

Mr. James McInnes: There are no speeches in the Division Lobby.

Mr. MacMillan: With my hon. Friends from Scotland, I sat in the Chamber hoping that we would have the opportunity of discussing some very important matters affecting millions of people in Scotland. There were several most important Measures which, when the Tories were in Opposition before the war, were then treated as important Measures. They insisted on having a full discussion of them when we were putting the Measures through this House. The right hon. and gallant Member for

Kelvingrove at least should have made some protest in the name of Scotland against the treatment of his country under the gag which was operated the other night.
One of the difficulties from which we suffer is that there are two Chief Whips, as the Secretary of State for Scotland is still a Chief Whip rather than Secretary of State for Scotland. The present Chief Whip has the duty of enforcing silence from us, but the Secretary of State is simply a Chief Whip who has retired to endless silence at the Scottish Office. One of the jobs of the Whips was to arrange to curtail discussion on Scottish affairs in this House as soon as it became inconvenient to have more discussions. The right hon. Gentleman got up and used words which, if not intended to deceive, led us to make the mistake of trusting him.

Mr. J. Stuart: The hon. Member will find the opening words to which he referred are used very often.

Mr. MacMillan: The discussion on that occasion had hardly commenced having regard to the things we were discussing, and I think only two hon. Members had spoken. In all that night there were four Front Bench speakers and two back bench speakers covering all the Bills under the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. The right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove was most anxious to speak and was frustrated, as he has been for quite a long time. He was desperately anxious to speak and was popping up and down throughout the early part of the speeches from this side of the House. He got in a few words about Lanark Market which, I should explain, is a market for livestock in Lanarkshire. That was on the Transport Bill, and I do not know how he worked it in, but I presume that he considered that the next step for transport after the market would be the Tory slaughterhouse. He had his opportunity later, but lost his enthusiasm and has never been able to make his speech since because of the operation of the gag put on by his own Chief Whip and the Under-Secretary of State.
Scottish hon. Members do not want to make a nationalist issue of it, nor to overdo criticism in respect of Scotland alone, because we think it applies to the whole of these discussions, to the whole of this procedure and these debates. We


are not speaking for Scotland alone but as hon. Members of this House. But it is also our specific duty, as hon. Members representing Scottish constituencies, to raise matters which are of importance to Scotland. We have been denied that opportunity, although the Government have no fewer than three Under-Secretaries for Scotland and a Minister of State in another place.
I speak for all Scottish colleagues on this side of the House and, I am sure, for colleagues from all parts of the United Kingdom in protesting that the Secretary of State has failed to exercise his duty as Secretary of State in defending, first, the rights of the Scottish people to have their affairs discussed and dealt with in this House—the rights of Scottish Members for which he has some responsibility, I think, at least some moral responsibility, to deal with them—and, secondly, for having failed in any way to exercise his influence, if he has any, on the Chief Whip and the Leader of the House. Hon. Members on this side of the House representing Scottish constituencies were prevented from speaking by the tyrannical action of the gagging by the Secretary of State, the Chief Whip and the Leader of the House.

8.35 p.m.

Mr. J. Grimond: When the party to which I belong climbs on the fence, it usually finds itself on a rather lonely eminence. I must say that tonight, if they were free to choose, we might find the fence weighed down by at least the formidable figures of the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, East (Mr. Boothby), the right hon. and gallant Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot), and also, I think, by the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. J. J. Astor). They have expressed very grave doubts about the condition of business in this House. That may certainly be a matter for which all Members bear some responsibility, but the Government can certainly not escape a heavy share of that responsibility. If their own supporters are correct, they must take some share of whatever blame there may be.
I sympathise with the doubts that have been expressed. There is widespread concern in the country about many great issues to which the right hon. and gallant

Member for Kelvingrove drew attention. If one travels abroad one finds a great admiration for this country, but also no little concern about its future. These are matters to which Parliament should address its mind and for which it should have adequate machinery so that reasonable discussion can take place. I certainly support the appeal that has been made for some sort of investigation into the conduct of Parliamentary business.
Like the hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. M. MacMillan), however, I do not think we should take too tragic a view of a certain amount of inter-party bickering. I must confess that sometimes when one reads HANSARD the morning after it does seem a little difficult to distinguish from "Beachcomber" in the "Daily Express." I can well imagine that when the Press Council is set up—on an entirely voluntary basis, of course—one of the first complaints may be from serious journalists like "Beachcomber" about this unwarranted cut-throat competition.
It is nevertheless surprising to hear this complaint coming from the Conservative Party. Although it was rather before my time, I understand that in the days before the First World War they carried on a filibuster and used all the Parliamentary tricks in a way which would make the present Labour Party tactics seem like chicken feed—or perhaps I should say goose feed. Who was it who did this? Not a few disreputable back benchers; people like members of the great and revered family of Cecil were in the forefront. But Parliament has survived and is still here, and few hon. Members think that it is not the premier legislative body of the world.
I feel, therefore, that while it may be very necessary to examine a change of methods to deal with changed circumstances, those circumstances arise not so much from the fact that parties are equally divided or because there has been a certain rising of tempers in the House but because of the problems of today and because Parliament, as has been mentioned previously in the debate, has to attend to all sorts of matters which in the 19th century were outside its purview. It is on these grounds primarily that I think there is certainly a strong case for investigation.
I began by mentioning the unpleasant fact that tonight the Liberal Party will


be unable to vote on either side. I am sure that my reasons will appeal to the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), who only wants to "whip" into the Lobby those who accept the doctrines of Socialism. We do not accept them, and if we were to vote for this Motion we should be saying that we would prefer a Socialist Government to a Conservative Government. I must say candidly that at present, at any rate, we prefer the devil we know to the one we do not. It is indeed difficult to know what a Labour Government would, in fact, be, far less what it would do; and therefore I am at best prepared to keep an open mind. But we have learned with great pleasure of their sudden conversion to the principles of electoral reform, and in that direction it might be that possibly they will have the invaluable assistance of the Liberal Party.
While we, therefore, feel unable to vote for this Motion, I must confess it would be a very hardy act to express complete confidence in the handling of the business of the House by the Government. I cannot speak as an expert. I am one of the newest boys in this House, but to my mind when there is a Bill like the Transport Bill, which personally I support in its broad outline, but which is widely criticised not only by Labour papers but by Conservative and independent papers, to introduce a Guillotine Motion merely on the ground that it is going to be opposed seems to my simple mind to be unjustified, at least on Liberal principles.
Then we know that the Government were caught out in the small hours of one morning. It may very well be that that is like whipping off the bails when the batsman has backed up too far. But it would seem to me that to impose collective punishment on the House of Commons for an omission by the Government, which the Prime Minister now admits was an omission, and to force Members to sit up all night, was unjust. When the Prime Minister comes here and tells us that far more time has been spent in this Parliament than in previous Parliaments in discussing various routine Measures, I reflect again, speaking with very little experience, that a very great deal of good can come from the consideration of these routine Measures.
I take no credit for it, but the Army Act is to be gone through for the first time for many years. I do not know what

the motives were of those who investigated the matter, but whatever the motives the results may be wholly to the good. The Expiring Laws Continuance Bill certainly needed close consideration, and there are other Measures which Parliament can consider with advantage.
I cannot help thinking that the first step before we have any inquiries or select committees is to re-establish as much good will as we can. Personally, I think there is a wide measure of desire for it, and this debate may well act as a thunderstorm and clear the air.
If I may refer without impertinence to the Leader of the House, I would say that he was an extremely efficient poacher when in Opposition. No one was more artful at pursuing rabbits than he, and I speak as a rabbit. Now he is the gamekeeper. What I wonder is whether it is a gamekeeper that is really needed at the moment, and whether his very efficiency and expertness in Opposition have not perhaps led him to suspect the motives of an Opposition as he knows so well what the motives in an Opposition mean. I say it in all humility that it seems to me that good will could be established, and that is the first preliminary to the many necessary reforms which in later days it may be essential to consider for the conduct of business.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. Victor Raikes: This debate has twisted in one particular. As one who has been a Member of the House for quite a number of years, I have known many Motions of censure moved at different times almost entirely upon great issues, but I have never seen a Motion so trivial in form and so devoid of substance as that moved tonight. That has been borne out by the fact that the many speeches that have been made had nothing to do with the Motion at all, but have turned on the question of how to improve our Parliamentary procedure.
In the short period which I have to speak, I propose to be controversial on the terms of the Motion itself. We all know that this stems from what happened on the night when the House was counted out. I should be the last to say that the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) has not a perfect constitutional right to call a count if he so desires. I would also agree that technically it is


the duty of the Government of the day to keep a House.
The Government had two reasons to suppose that a count would be unlikely. The first was that never in the history of Parliament on a two-day debate on a Bill bitterly opposed by the Opposition has any Opposition ever called a count. They have never tried to count out a Bill on which they desired to speak.

Mr. R. R. Stokes: May I remind the hon. Gentleman of the Motion of censure debate in July, 1942, when a count took place? That was not called by the people supporting the Motion.

Mr. Raikes: No, but the right hon. Gentleman will remember that there was an unlimited suspension and that the count was at three o'clock in the morning. There was in fact no extension of time for the first day of the debate on the Iron and Steel Bill.
The second reason is a far stronger one which has not been referred to tonight. No one who heard the Opposition a few months ago thundering their denunciation of this Bill would have imagined that they would have deliberately curtailed a debate upon it. When the hon. Member for Dudley had his brainwave or his brainstorm, whichever one cares to call it, and called a count, he helped the Government considerably. By shortening that discussion the hon. Member made it plain throughout the country that all these cries about the anger of the nation against this Bill are as synthetic and "phoney" as the Motion before us today. I am delighted that he took that attitude and that he was able to clarify the position.
We pass to the second day. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House acted with a propriety which I do not think anyone can criticise. Although Mr. Speaker made it plain that there was no complete precedent, the Leader of the House deliberately did not put forward the Motion to go back to the debate on the Bill on the same day. The only precedents arose from 1890 and 1912, and if he had acted on the precedent of 1912 my right hon. Friend would at once have moved the adjournment of the House.
But if my right hon. Friend had done that, those Prayers would never have been discussed. They were Opposition Prayers which hon. Gentleman opposite desired to discuss and my right hon. Friend was right to give opportunity for discussion. He has never had one word of thanks for a gesture which showed greater generosity than the gesture of hon. Gentlemen opposite, which was to cancel 82 pairs between Members of Parliament made under the normal contract between Private Members.
Then we come to the third day when, as a result of the alteration of business, we sat all through the night. It is uncomfortable to sit all night. I do not think that any hon. or right hon. Gentleman opposite has done the Leader of the House the credit of pointing out that on these Emergency Powers in the year 1952 we had fully two days' discussion, whereas last year and the previous year we had only one day under the late Government.
The fact that we had a late night had one advantage for those who wanted further discussion. It was that, instead of a normal debate from about 4 o'clock to 10 o'clock, which is six hours, we had nine and a half hours in the course of that evening. The most astounding thing of all, however, was the outburst by the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Bing) next morning. The hon. and learned Member, as both he and the House will recollect, protested bitterly at 8 o'clock on Friday morning against the conduct of the Government, and then walked out of the House.
Who is he to object to talking late at night? We know very well that the hon. and learned Gentleman and his friends, the "midnight minstrels," are always at their brightest after midnight, and the House is well accustomed to these tuneless melodies with which they sometimes try to entertain us. Why should he complain? The only reason that I can think of is that, during that night, in which indeed there was a good discussion on Emergency Powers, the hon. and learned Member for Hornchurch and his friends, who generally take up all the night watches, were unable to do that, but had their pitch queered by other people.
We covered the business, and we gave more time to that business than had been given either in the previous year or the year before, and we also honoured our


position in regard to the Prayers. We did our utmost to facilitate business, and now, what is the complaint? It is incompetence. If incompetence is the complaint, I would ask hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite who are they to talk of incompetence, when the Opposition, night after night, are voted down by a Government majority of double or more than double the nominal strength?
I suggest that the party opposite should think again. They criticise my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip, but, in fact, the Patronage Secretary has been getting an inferiority complex upon the other side. I am going to add this. It was a sign of fear on the part of the party opposite that, after being voted down by ever-increasing majorities, on Tuesday night they did not even dare to vote at all. In confidence, I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), who is a very vigorous and very powerful debater, that, instead of struggling to maintain this futile and miserable Motion, he should instead move a Motion of censure upon his own party for their failure to keep up their numbers in the Division Lobby, particularly after 10.30 p.m. If he did that, something interesting might be learned.
Although I think—and these are my final words—[HON. MEMBERS "Hear, hear."]—I can add another two or three minutes. [Interruption.] Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite know that I do not mind noise, and that I do not lose my temper. Indeed, why should I? What I was going to say was that it might be advisable for the right hon. Gentleman to try to find out why it is that, at a time when he is accusing this Government of incompetence, incompetence is growing in the Lobbies on the other side.
I think I am giving what I believe to be the answer. It was said by the Duke of Wellington long years ago—[Interruption.] After all, hon. Members opposite have spent most of their time delving into the past; I have only gone there once. Like most of my party, I look to the future; I am not wandering in a wilderness of decayed Fabianism. What the Duke of Wellington said was:
You never get bad troops, only bad officers.
I think that these squalid squabbles at the top of the Socialist Party are whittling away their party at the bottom, and any

Motion which they debate or speak for today will be regarded by the country as springing from their failure, their weakness and their decrepitude.

8.56 p.m.

Mr. Aneurin Bevan: There have been one or two speeches in the course of this debate which I thought were rather ominous. Their authors spoke as if at the present time we are witnessing the decline of Parliamentary institutions, as if all the difficulties into which we have got at the present time are due to some defects in the Parliamentary system.
I think that is a very dangerous line to take. It is very dangerous to attribute to Parliament what are really the shortcomings of parties. There is nothing at all in our Constitution which is so rigid and so inflexible that it cannot be adapted to any set of circumstances. In fact, it has always been held to be one of the glories of the British Constitution, and especially of the Parliamentary system, that we can at any time bend it, adjust it, arrange it, reform it and adapt it to national needs.
But, of course, that also has its great dangers, because it means that we cannot be protected by a written Constitution, so that at any time a majority in the House of Commons can, if it wishes, not merely adjust the Constitution to the needs of the circumstances, but can distort the Constitution according to its own wishes. Therefore, I think it would be a very great mistake for us to have it go out from this House this evening to all the world that we are having an examination of the defects of the Parliamentary system. What we are having at the present time is an examination of the deficiencies of the way in which that Constitution is being manipulated by the Government.
It is perfectly true that the Motion of censure that we have put down is a most unusual one. Of course it is, and the Prime Minister drew attention to its unusual character, because it is not often that an Opposition complains about the incompetence of Ministers. On the contrary, we rejoice at it. What we are complaining about is that they visit the results of their incompetence upon the House as a whole.
Perhaps before we go much further, and as the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister is now in his place, I ought to give him a little Parliamentary arithmetic, because I thought that he


claimed a degree of Parliamentary heroism to which he is not entitled. He spoke this afternoon of having only a 16 majority. My hon. Friends have given me the break-down—I hope that is not too ominous an expression—of the membership of the House of Commons among the different parties. The Labour Party has 295 Members. There are three Irish Nationalists who do not always pay us the honour of attending, so we cannot always rely upon them, although when they are here they usually have the good sense to vote with us.
Then there are 300 Conservatives, and there is that peculiar body, accepting the Conservative Whip, called Liberal-Nationalists. Then, of course, there are the Liberals, but we cannot always rely upon their support. In fact I have been informed that they have voted for the Government since the beginning of this Parliament on 88 per cent. of the occasions and on 12 per cent. for us. I hope that those percentages will be noted by the country. Although they sit on the fence quite a good deal, they have also fallen down almost regularly on one side. This gives the Government in all a regular majority of 29. So the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister is not quite as heroic as he thought he was; and on several occasions we have reduced that majority to 11 and eight, so the record is not bad.
Now, it is perfectly correct that this Motion falls into two parts—the one which refers to the way in which the Patronage Secretary and the Leader of the House have been behaving, and the second part which deals with general policy. No one in this House, especially one who has been here as long as I have been, will complain about the use of the Guillotine on certain occasions. I have voted for it, although I must take pride in the fact that, though having had a large number of Bills to manage through the House, I have never had to resort to the Guillotine myself; but that is due to my non-controversial disposition. Other Ministers are not so happy and so they have to have the Guillotine.
The argument is not about whether the House should have a Guillotine at all. The argument is as to whether the Guillotine should be regarded as a normal piece of Parliamentary procedure.

What frightens us, and not only what frightens us on this side of the House but secretly frightens hon. Members opposite and certainly has frightened public commentators outside the House, is the readiness, indeed the frivolity, with which this Government have resorted to it.
I cannot do any other than call in aid a speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister which he made on the India Bill when, I regret to say, he was the leader of a dissident group inside the Conservative Party. I am bound to say that that was not so much dissolved as suffered a sea change. He said:
Surely it would be a very great credit to the House and to the Government, and especially to my right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary, it a Bill of this extraordinary size and intricacy were to pass through Parliament, when feelings run so high about it, without there being the necessity of any formal Guillotine Resolution or without the necessity even of applying the Closure at any point. That I believe, is not beyond our power to achieve, and if so, it will greatly enhance the procedure of this House and get us back to the period before our procedure was mutilated during the latter part of the nineteenth century."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th February, 1935; Vol. 297, c. 1640.]
He goes on to argue with his usual eloquence, and with a much more felicitous collection of adjectives than he has shown recently, how, in fact, it is only possible to bring out the merits of a Measure if there is free debate. Indeed, I myself—perhaps it is because of my Welsh disposition—always feel that we have not yet been able to dispense with the market place in searching out each other's minds. It is the merit of discussion in this House, conducted usually in conversational tones, that we have sufficient time to examine Measures, and the debate quite often discloses unforeseen weaknesses.
Indeed, having been responsible for a large number of Bills, I know as well as anybody here that civil servants make great mistakes in framing their Measures, and quite often Parliament discovers them, but can only discover them if there is proper debate. Therefore, I earnestly hope that hon. Members will not consider that the discussions that take place in this House are only discussions destined to make things awkward for the Government. They are usually discussions that are designed for the purpose of eliciting the actual merits of the controversy and the merits of the Measure.
That is one of the serious objections to the Guillotine. When the Leader of the House, a right hon. Gentleman with great Parliamentary experience, says to the House that he proposes to have a Guillotine just because the Opposition intend to oppose a Measure, and when the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister hints, as he did today about the Steel Bill—before we have hardly started to discuss it—that we are going to have a time-table about that, the right hon. Gentleman is not only going back upon his own great past, but is doing very great damage to Parliamentary institutions. We believe on this side of the House in the eminence of Parliamentary democracy. [Interruption.] I do not know what hon. Members opposite mean by that, but I should think that I have been for 23 years one of the stoutest defenders of the procedure of this House, and I believe that modern civilisation can solve its problems better by counting heads than by breaking them. That is only if we preserve in all sanctity the institution that we are entrusted with here.
It seems to me that on general grounds alone, the Government ought to reconsider the reckless way in which they introduce time-tables for Bills that have hardly started their course. Surely the right thing to do is to test out the temper of the House first of all, and if subsequently a Bill is too slow in passing, then the Government have a case to introduce the Guillotine, but they have no case to introduce it before first of all they have tested the reaction of the House to the Measure. I think that would be accepted as a reasonable statement of the case.
I said earlier that we were concerned about the behaviour of the Patronage Secretary and the Leader of the House. My right hon. Friend called attention to it but, the Prime Minister having misstated the facts, it is necessary to recount them. In the first place, what is the use of working out averages, as to how much time in the last four or five years the House has spent in considering the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill? What have averages to do with this? This Bill this year was not the same Bill as in previous years. The Local Authority Loans Act had been dropped out of it and there was a separate Bill for that brought in in the wrong order.
There was a long discussion in the House, when my hon. Friends were asking

why the Public Works Loans Bill had been introduced before the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, because in all past years the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill was introduced first. No one could give the answer, and the answer has not been given up till now. Surely, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman ought to ask himself why it is that his colleagues are serving him so badly. Perhaps he would be good enough to tell the House confidentially—having acquired a very inflammable vocabulary in the course of the last few days—what language he used to the Patronage Secretary.

The Prime Minister: Only praise.

Mr. Bevan: Perhaps we shall have to include the right hon. Gentleman in our Motion of no confidence and incompetence. What happened? First, it is necessary to remember that Ministers have always been exceedingly careful as to what they put in Schedules to Bills. There always has been an argument with Parliamentary draftsmen, and there has always been an argument in the House, that not too much should go into the Schedule of a Bill. I say "a Bill" but the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill consists of nothing but the Schedule.
I want to ask the Patronage Secretary this question, and I hope he can give the House a candid reply: When he moved, "That the Question be now put" on Part II of the Schedule to the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, did he think he was putting the Closure in the ordinary way or did he know that he was actually compelling Parliament at that moment to pass into law four Acts without any discussion at all?

Hon Members: Answer.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. P. G. T. Buchan-Hepburn): The whole discussion had taken a very long time—unnecessarily long. I am quite aware that certain inconveniences were caused to those who had later Amendments; but that is surely a matter for the Opposition to arrange among themselves. There was sufficient time, in that the whole thing had taken 13½ hours.
I did in fact consult the Secretary of State for Scotland because, to be quite frank, I had intended to claim the Schedule before the Scottish Amendments were moved, but having had a consultation with him we agreed that it would be


right to take the Scottish Amendments and allow some discussion upon them, which I think meant another three hours, while 250 of our Members were sitting up here and 30 of the Opposition. I should not have minded a bit if the right hon. Gentleman's party had ever meant to vote, but they did not mean to vote. They were not serious.

Mr. Bevan: This is indeed a strange rejoinder.

Hon. Members: Oh.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I would remind the House that no effective debate can be carried on if it is interrupted by a series of noisy exchanges from one side of the House to the other.

Mr. Bevan: I promised to sit down at half-past nine.

Brigadier Terence Clarke: You asked for it.

Mr. Bevan: I have asked for it and I am giving it back. I am asking the Patronage Secretary what he means by his statement. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where were you?"] Does he mean by that statement that if Divisions are not forced by the Opposition, discussion must be curtailed? That is what the right hon. Gentleman said. He said "It is obvious that the Opposition had no intention of dividing." [HON. MEMBERS: "They did not divide."] If hon. Members will listen for a moment, I will remind them that these are not Amendments in the ordinary way of amending a Bill.

Mr. Stephen McAdden: Time-wasting Amendments.

Mr. Bevan: If the hon. Member will listen, he will be less ignorant than he is now. These so-called Amendments are Amendments to leave out an Act from the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, and they are moved in order that the contents of the Act may be discussed. Indeed, if part of the Schedule is reached and the Closure is put on the Motion to leave out that Act, after a reasonable period of time, that is reasonable, but to move the Closure on the Schedule as a whole is unprecedented in the whole history of Parliament.

Mr. Ralph Assheton: rose—

Mr. Bevan: It has never been—

Hon. Members: Give way.

Mr. Bevan: I will not give way.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Bevan: I have not time. It is not fair to interrupt me when I have promised to sit down at half-past nine. I warn hon. Members that I will speak until 10 o'clock, and then the Government will not be able to reply.

Mr. Assheton: Mr. Assheton rose—

Hon. Members: Give way.

Mr. Bevan: Mr. Speaker, I am bound to tell you, in all courtesy, that I do not propose to sit down at half-past nine unless I get some courtesy from hon. Members.
As I was saying, it was in those circumstances that we had to discuss what to do. I cannot go into more detail about that now; there is a Motion on the Order Paper about the Chairman of Ways and Means, and in a debate upon that we can discuss this matter in greater detail. I still say, after 23 years' experience of the House of Commons, that the use of the Closure in this way was an outrage against Parliamentary procedure.

Mr. Assheton: May I be allowed to thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way? As he was not here on that occasion and I was, may I remind him that the Closure was agreed by the House?

Mr. Bevan: That is no reply at all. That is not an answer at all in the circumstances. The Patronage Secretary has already pointed out that there was an overwhelming Government majority in the House at the time, and, therefore, no Division took place. What we object to is the fact that the Patronage Secretary moved the Closure. We shall discuss that at far greater length on Monday.

Mr. Buchan-Hepburn: If it was a matter of such vital importance that a Motion had to be put down about it, was it not sufficiently important to vote against?

Mr. Bevan: The indictment lies against the right hon. Gentleman at that moment in invoking the authority of the Chair. Indeed, if I may quote from a speech of my own, I said last year:
It is not merely a question of the constitutional procedure of the House of Commons. It is a fact—and we must face this fact—as my hon. and learned Friend has pointed out, that the Chairmen of Committees will find


themselves in increasingly embarrassing situations, having to accept closures on discussions in Committee when quite often large numbers of hon. Members have not been able to speak. In fact, it has become so serious that it is almost as difficult to be heard in Committee now as in the House itself."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th April, 1952; Vol. 498, c. 2785–6.]
Then I went on to say—and this is the point—that by invoking this procedure, collisions are now beginning to occur between the Chairman of Ways and Means and the Members themselves, and it is the duty of the Government to get their business through the House of Commons without so distorting the procedure as to make it necessary for us to attempt to correct the behaviour of the Chairman by Motion.
This Motion of censure has a second leg. It refers not only to the way in which the Patronage Secretary and Leader of the House have been behaving, but also to the fact that the Government are using the time of the House for irrelevant Measures. The right hon. Gentleman said today that the Transport Bill and the Iron and Steel Bill are brought forward by the Government because he and his followers consider that they are necessary in the national interest. Why have we not had them before? Do they mean to tell me that the Members of the Government are so negligent of the national interest that they have withheld the benefit of those Measures from the country for over a year? Why? Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us why it is, if these are necessary in the national interest, we have not had them before? We have not had them yet, but why have we not had them before?
The fact is that the right hon. Gentleman is in a very embarrassed situation. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kelvingrove (Lieut.-Colonel Elliot), in a most interesting speech tonight, pointed out that we had got very serious difficulties. In fact, the right hon. Gentleman is beginning to remind me more and more of Mr. Stanley Baldwin in his most decadent days. In 1931 to 1935, 1936 and 1937 we also had the situation about which the party opposite now boasts. We had the situation in which we had a favourable overseas balance of payments. We had it then, and stagnant production. We are having it now. [HON. MEMBERS: "Having what?"] Stagnant production.
At the present time there is a fall in production taking place in every industry except those which are nationalised industries. The only industries in Great Britain at the moment where there is rising production is in the nationalised industries. [HON. MEMBERS: "Housing."] If hon. Members will permit me, I will deal with that. This, of course, is the only small figleaf with which hon. Gentlement opposite are covering their nakedness.
In fact, the Minister of Housing and Local Government is desperately hoping that this year he will be able to provide 50,000 fewer homes than we built in 1948, and he is regarded as the most successful Minister, the Minister about whom they boast most; he forms the basis of their perorations in the country. He is the Minister who in 1952, seven years after the war, will build 50,000 fewer houses than we built in 1948.
We would like the Government to be able to bring before the House of Commons Measures which do relate to national needs. Everybody knows that the situation in which the country finds itself is pretty grim. The situation in the overseas balance of payments is favourable because imports have fallen; and imports have fallen this year because production has not risen this year. Hon. Members opposite really must face these facts. There is short time in many industries, overtime is down in many industries, and unemployment has grown in some industries. This is the picture hon. Members must face.
It is always possible to have a favourable balance of payments position if production is cut down so that the country does not have to import raw materials, and all the Government have done is to achieve financial solvency at the expense of producing industrial stagnation. [Interruption.] It is no good hon. Gentlemen opposite muttering in that way, because they know that their business friends are telling them the same thing in the country outside. We are very anxious to see the Government bring forward proposals to deal with this problem. What we want today is to get them out as quickly as possible, because we have ideas about how to deal with the problem.
The right hon. Gentleman prides himself on the fact that he has got his followers to follow him in a docile fashion


in the Lobby—what he describes in his own speech, from which I have just quoted, as "a moribund majority"—

The Prime Minister: Moribund?

Mr. Bevan: A moribund majority, yes. It is not enough for the right hon. Gentleman to satisfy himself by saying that he thinks the country is more stoutly behind him than it was a year ago. The country was stoutly behind Mr. Stanley Baldwin when the country was decaying, when its basic industries were languishing and when we had two million unemployed. All that the right hon. Gentleman has done at the end of his great career is to repeat today the achievements of the man whom he bitterly attacked before the war. In fact, the apotheosis of Winston Churchill is to be like Stanley Baldwin.

9.32 p.m.

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Harry Crookshank): In rising to follow the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) in what I should not like to call exactly a maiden speech, but, anyhow, a return to that Front Bench, my first words, I think, must be gratification that the rules of debate differ very widely from the laws of cricket. In the latter game, the 12th man is never put on to bowl. Speaking from the point of view of the batting side however, there was nothing in the right hon. Gentleman's speech which leads me to raise any objection to the course which has been adopted. I am not quite clear at the end of it what exactly he proved, but the right hon. Gentleman certainly spoke with his usual charm and urbanity and in the best spirit of co-operation.
This is a Motion of censure, and I cannot imagine any Motion of censure which has ever arisen out of such a very small origin. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It has been admitted all through the speeches that what has really caused this upsurge of feeling were the incidents—[HON. MEMBERS: "It was you."] Of course, it is we who are being censured, and I hope, therefore, that the reply might be listened to. [Interruption.]
The origins of this Motion of censure were the events of the other night when the House was counted out. I must say that at that time I thought it was a back bench manoeuvre originating with the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg).

Has it now got the blessing of the official Opposition? Well, it does not seem so from the outstanding silence, and I am not surprised, because in point of fact it was a great breach of the conventions of this House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I do not say that on my own authority, but take it from two organs of opinion which are not friendly to this Government as a general rule.
It is a breach of convention to spoil a Second Reading debate on an important Bill.
said the "Manchester Guardian."
It is contrary to the conventions for the Opposition to exercise its right"—
and no one is questioning that—[Interruption.]—I am talking about conventions, and the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) has no inhibitions about keeping silent—
to have the House counted out during the inevitable quiet stage in the debate of a major Bill.
That is what the "Economist" said about it. In spite of all this, the Government were able to achieve the two objectives they always set themselves in every week that passes. The first is to get the Government business which has been announced and which, as a result of the preliminary talks before the business statement on Thursday, is agreed to be acceptable, within, of course, the limits of opposition to the other side. And the second objective is to see that private Members' time in any week when there is private Members' time is reached. We did that, and when I am told that our action is unfair, as in the words of the Motion, I must remind the House that after all it was we who introduced full private Members' time and were particularly anxious to see that it was safeguarded last Friday in view of the important Bill to be debated. I say that, in spite of the incident which occurred, we achieved the two normal objectives of the week.
But, of course, as far as the Opposition were concerned, that was very different, because what they did was to expose to public gaze the fact that, although they claimed that we were not giving enough time to the de-nationalisation Measures, the Labour Party were not ready to use all the time we had given them, and the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. Jack Jones) did not make his speech that night owing to the action of the hon. Member for Dudley. What of the pretence that the country is deeply stirred against the


Iron and Steel Bill when there are only four Labour Members left to carry on the debate? Where is the call to battle of the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss)? I know what it was; it was the hon. Member for Dudley who was calling to retreat that night.

Mr. Jack Jones: Mr. Jack Jones (Rotherham) rose—

Mr. Crookshank: And it was on this occasion—

Mr. Jack Jones: On a point of order. On the conduct of business in this House, is it not usual when an hon. Member is mentioned that he should be shown the common courtesy and allowed to reply?

Mr. Speaker: I do not think that is the fixed rule.

Hon. Members: It is a convention.

Mr. Jones: The right hon. Gentleman made a statement—

Mr. Crookshank: I did not see the hon. Member.

Mr. Jones: The right hon. Gentleman made the statement that the Labour Party were not prepared to fill in the time on the steel nationalisation proposals. May I inform the right hon. Gentleman that because of the failure of the Government to keep a House, two ex-Ministers, already briefed and prepared to speak, were not allowed to speak at all?

Mr. Crookshank: That reply, if I may say so, most completely proves my point.
There was an occasion in 1950 when the then Government was defeated in a debate on the Adjournment. The time was 10 o'clock; it was not an extraordinary time, but they were defeated on a night when they apparently had not expected a Division. The then Prime Minister said in this House
the position of the Opposition"—
that is we who were on the other side of the House at that time—
is that at any time they can direct an attack.
The parallel apparently is that they can also direct a withdrawal.
I quite agree that the Government forces ought to have been at full strength—I regret that they were not—and the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, was able to score a success."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th March, 1950; Vol. 473, c. 556–7.]
I think those are very nearly the words which my right hon. Friend also used

this afternoon when he expressed his regret that this unfortunate incident should have occurred.
But this time it was not the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition who was directing any attacks or withdrawals—he was not here; it was the hon. Member for Dudley who was doing it. I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman and all his friends approve of what was done. I do know from conversations I have had that it was not universally supported. At all events we certainly did not on that occasion move a Motion of censure because we had defeated the Government, though had we had as many splits in our party then perhaps we would have done so.
The fact of the matter is that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite are really suffering from jealousy. They are very jealous of the long list of Divisions which my right hon. Friend instanced this afternoon showing how the majorities in the Division Lobby have been so much higher than what is called the paper majority. And indeed they have reason to be, because the "New Statesman"—that at any rate is not a Conservative newspaper—was good enough, in June, to comment upon the success and the competence of my right hon. Friend, when they said:
Now that the positions are reversed"—
that is that we are on this side of the House—
he has found little difficulty in beating oft the haphazard assaults of his opposite number, the Santa Claus-like Mr. Whiteley.
The approach of Christmas makes that quotation very suitable.
But that was not the only tribute—I have here the "Tribune"—which we got at that time. The right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale, I think, had something to do with the "Tribune" then—the newspaper—or perhaps it was the female line. At all events the Parliamentary correspondent of the "Tribune," which certainly is not a pro-Government paper—I am not sure that it is always a pro-Labour Party paper—was commenting on the Finance Bill and started off by throwing brickbats. I regret to say that one of the bigger brickbats fell on the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer who now sits on the Front bench opposite. Then the writer came to "medals,":
Now for some medals. The first one must go to the Tory Whips.

Mr. Stokes: Was that this year?

Mr. Crookshank: Oh, yes, this year, on 27th June, after the Budget. It went on:
Apart from the usual board meetings, cocktail parties, etc., there's been Ascot. Yet the Tory majorities, except twice, in an all-night sitting, have been well maintained. The fact is that those mild-mannered men who work in the Tory Whips' office have established a reign of terror of which Robespierre would be envious.
I think perhaps jealousy may be part of the answer, unless there is a Robespierre over there hiding, blushing and unseen. I really do not know. Obviously it is true that any Opposition can hold up Government business almost indefinitely if so minded, owing to all the amount of business which has to be transacted. I think it is probably common ground, and so the Government have been furnished with certain weapons by Standing Orders. Otherwise, the Government would never get through its business.
My attention has been called to one matter in connection with this subject. I think I must ask the indulgence of the House to read one sentence. It is of enormous length, but it was Mr. Asquith speaking. This is what he was saying on this very subject of the House taking certain precautions, because the Government had to use the modern machine with great reluctance and even with repugnance, but it was necessary if they were to get their business through. He went on to say:
I do not exaggerate when I say that if you were to sit continuously during the whole 12 months of the year, and worked through them with unremitting ardour and assiduity, you would find at the end not only that there were still large arrears of legislation which you have not even attempted to overtake, not only in all the sums raised by taxation whose appropriation had never even been discussed, but that there were vast areas of the Empire—I do not now speak of the Self-governing Dominions—for which we are still directly responsible as trustees, to whose concerns we had not been able to afford so much as one single night."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th April, 1912; Vol. 34, c. 1405.]
Forty years have passed since that day.

Mr. Clement Davies: It is beautiful language.

Mr. Crookshank: The language is beautiful, but nowadays we do get through it a little shorter. I am reminded of another one because of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's interjection. We have to some extent streamlined both our Parliamentary business and our language.

Questions which nowadays would be answered by the Prime Minister with "No, Sir" because that would be a sufficient reply, were answered by Mr. Gladstone at greater length. Someone once asked him if he was going to make a statement on Russia, and he said:
I may answer the question by saying that I have not the least reason to suppose that it would be in the least degree advantageous to the public service that we should make any such statement at any time whatever.
The Opposition can hold up Government business, but there are certain conventions which are observed, and the Leader of the House acts in a dual capacity. It is a comparatively modern post, but as well as acting as Leader of the House he must always remember that he is also a Queen's Minister. He has got to see that the Queen's business is done in this House. He has also a certain responsibility to see that in so far as it can be arranged the convenience of everyone is consulted. That has been done. He has got to balance the ever-increasing demand for general debates with the necessity for legislation.

Mr. Bevan: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that, because the House has been counted out, it is a reasonable exercise of his second function to force the House to sit to the small hours of the morning?

Mr. Crookshank: I am getting to that. I must make my speech in my own way.
This can only be done if certain conventions are observed. Government business during this Session has, in fact, gone forward much slower than the national need demands. If the fault does not lie with the Opposition, it lies with the opposition within the Opposition. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. H. Morrison) the other day produced "The Times" and quoted it against me during the debate on the Motion for the Guillotine. "The Times" of that day also published this sentence—

Mr. Herbert Morrison: I could not quote the whole article.

Mr. Crookshank: The right hon. Gentleman selected his quotation, but this sentence was in the same article. This it what it said:
The Government may fairly claim that the Opposition during the early days of this session


has given indication that it is determined on obstructing the two major measures of denationalisation.
I might add that I made it quite clear that I took the same view.
What does this Motion of censure mean so far as the responsible leaders of the Opposition are concerned? Does it mean now that instead of going off, as they are quite entitled to do as senior Members of this House, comparatively early to bed, they come out into the open to support the "late night final" activities of those who might be called partisans in a guerilla warfare? We made no attempt whatever when we were in Opposition ever to obstruct Government business. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I am choosing my words. I said quite clearly that we did not in any way obstruct Government business. [Interruption.] Mr. Speaker, we have been attacked, and I in particular. I hope that I shall be allowed to reply.
I was saying that Government business was never obstructed by the official Opposition. [HON. MEMBERS: "What about the Prayers?"] Prayers are not Government business; but granted for the sake of argument that that counts as obstruction, what happened? A Motion appeared on the Order Paper saying that we were bringing the Mother of Parliament into international disrepute. What do they say now?

Mr. H. Morrison: Why does the right hon. Gentleman say that this was confined to trouble about Orders? Does not he remember the disgraceful business about the Gas Bill, and was not there trouble during the early stages of the Transport Bill?

Mr. Crookshank: What we are discussing is business on the Floor of the House. I must remind the House once again of the situation. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition said that when he was a young Member of the House he remembered a lot of all-night Sittings on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. As we grow older our memory fades.
In 1922 the time spent on the corresponding Bill was under 3 hours; in 1923, it was 7½ hours; 1924, 2½ hours; 1925, under 4 hours; and 1926, 4 hours. Was that all night? Of course not. This time we have had the House kept up all night on the Home Guard Bill; the Army and

Air Force Bill on which we spent 17½ hours this year compared with 2 hours last year, and the Visiting Forces Bill on which we spent 18½ hours. That was a legacy from the Opposition. We did not originate that Bill.
All this is Government business. On the Public Works Loan Bill 1½ hours was spent two years ago, and 10 this year. On the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill 3 hours were spent last year and 13½ this year, and Conservative Members spoke for only 20 minutes during that debate. The night before last the Committee of the whole House proceeded seven times to a Division and the Opposition put in no tellers. They wasted a quarter of an hour by that manoeuvre, and they are now trying to make out that the Motion to claim the Schedule was a Parliamentary outrage.
They never even voted on it because they had only 25 people here. That is why. They were not prepared to show their nakedness. If it was a real constitutional outrage, it was better for 25 people to show that 275 Labour Members had gone away than not to vote at all. I would like to know where the Opposition stand. Do they believe, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale said last year, that because there is a small majority there should be no contentious legislation?

Mr. Bevan: Yes.

Mr. Crookshank: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Lewisham, South took exactly the contrary view when this issue was raised two years ago. This matter came up on 19th September, 1950, when the then Government got the Second Reading of the Iron and Steel Bill by six—that was a small enough majority. This question was raised then.
What he said was that the Leader of the Opposition was really asking for the Opposition to have a right of veto over the Government's legislative programme, which is monstrous and constitutionally bad, and he added:
This is a new attempt at a veto.… What utter revolutionary unconstitutional nonsense this is."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th September, 1950; Vol. 478, c. 1734.]

Mr. H. Morrison: I will not keep the House a minute. This Bill had been passed in the previous Parliament. This was merely a consequential stage. The point I was arguing—[Interruption.] If I


am interrupted, I shall delay the right hon. Gentleman, and that I do not wish to do. The point I was arguing was that by saying that we had no right to bring forward this consequential stage, they were trying to veto what the previous Parliament had done.

Mr. Crookshank: The two right hon. Gentlemen can reconcile their own differences between them. They have not found it very easy so far; perhaps they will do better in the future.
A great deal has been said during the debate about the lack of co-operation; there is no desire that there should be any lack of co-operation. Indeed, we are always discussing this matter through the usual channels, but we have found to our sorry cost that many arrangements which have been honourably made have not always been kept, and that makes it difficult. Even the right hon. Gentleman himself the other night came to an agreement that we should adjourn, and the Adjournment was delayed by something like half an hour because hon. Gentlemen behind him would go on speaking, although he and I had agreed that we should adjourn.

Mr. Harold Davies: On a point of order. Is it in order for the right hon. Gentleman opposite to say that he will limit the rights of back benchers, of

whatever party, because an arrangement has been made between the Front Benches?

Mr. Speaker: That really is not a point of order. What was said was that arrangements are made between the two Front Benches and that they are not always observed. There is nothing out of order in that.

Mr. Crookshank: All that was in our minds at the moment was to adjourn the debate, not to keep anybody out. They would naturally have their opportunity when it was resumed.
I am afraid that, with all these interruptions, I have been prevented from dealing with the second part of this Motion, which merely proves and accentuates what I said at the time—that the motive behind it is largely jealousy. The Opposition are jealous of our success, and are not yet, in fact, reconciled to the fact that they lost the last Election. They have not succeeded in the by-election contests which have taken place, and, because of the reasons which I have not been able to put forward, but certainly for those which I have, I ask the House to repudiate this Motion.

Question put.

The House divided: Ayes, 280; Noes, 304.

Division No. 32.]
AYES
[10.0 p.m.


Acland, Sir Richard
Burton, Miss F. E.
Edwards, John (Brighouse)


Adams, Richard
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, S.)
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)


Albu A. H.
Callaghan, L. J.
Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Carmichael, J.
Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)


Anderson, Alexander (Motherwell)
Champion, A. J.
Evans, Stanley (Wednesbury)


Anderson, Frank (Whitehaven)
Chapman, W. D.
Ewart, R.


Attlee, Rt. Hon. C. R.
Chetwynd, G. R.
Fernyhough, E.


Awbery, S. S.
Clunie, J.
Field, W. J.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Coldrick, W.
Fienburgh, W.


Baird, J.
Collick, P. H.
Finch, H. J.


Balfour, A.
Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Fletcher, Eric (Islington, E.)


Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.
Cove, W. G.
Follick, M.


Bartley, P.
Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Foot, M. M.


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Crosland, C. A. R.
Forman, J. C.


Bence, C. R.
Crossman, R. H. S.
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)


Benn, Wedgwood
Cullen, Mrs. A.
Freeman, John (Watford)


Benson, G.
Daines, P.
Freeman, Peter (Newport)


Beswick, F.
Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Darling, George (Hillsborough)
Gibson, C. W.


Bing, G. H. C.
Davies, A. Edward (Stoke, N.)
Glanville, James


Blackburn, F.
Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
Gooch, E. G.


Blenkinsop, A.
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.


Blyton, W. R.
Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)
Greenwood, Anthony (Rossendale)


Boardman, W.
de Freitas, Geoffrey
Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Wakefield)


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Deer, G.
Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.


Bowles, F. G.
Delargy, H. J.
Grey, C. F.


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Dodds, N. N.
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)


Brockway, A. F.
Donnelly, D. L.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)


Brook, Dryden (Halifax)
Driberg, T. E. N.
Griffiths, William (Exchange)


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John (W. Bromwich)
Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)


Burke, W. A.
Edelman, M.
Hall, John T. (Gateshead, W.)




Hamilton, W. W.
Mellish, R. J.
Slater, J.


Hannan, W.
Messer, F.
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


Hardy, E. A.
Mikardo, Ian
Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)


Hargreaves, A.
Mitchison, G. R.
Snow, J. W.


Hastings, S.
Monslow, W.
Sorensen, R. W.


Hayman, F. H.
Moody, A. S.
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Healey, Denis (Leeds, S. E.)
Morgan, Dr. H. B. W.
Sparks, J. A.


Henderson, Rt. Hon. A. (Rowley Regis)
Morley, R.
Steele, T.


Herbison, Miss M.
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Stewart, Michael (Fulham, E.)


Hewitson, Capt. M.
Morrison, Rt. Hon H. (Lewisham, S.)
Stokes, Rt. Hon. R. R.


Hobson, C. R.
Mort, D. L.
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.


Holman, P.
Moyle, A.
Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)


Holmes, Horace (Hemsworth)
Mulley, F. W.
Stross, Dr. Barnett


Houghton, Douglas
Murray, J. D.
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.


Hubbard, T. F.
Nally, W.
Swingler, S. T.


Hudson, James (Ealing, N.)
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)
Sylvester, G. O.


Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. J.
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
O'Brien, T.
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Oldfield, W. H.
Thomas, David (Aberdare)


Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Oliver, G. H.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Orbach, M.
Thomas, Ivor Owen (Wrekin)


Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Oswald, T.
Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)


Irving, W. J. (Wood Green)
Padley, W. E.
Thorneycroft, Harry (Clayton)


Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Paget, R. T.
Thornton, E. (Farnworth)


Janner, B.
Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)
Thurtle, Ernest


Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
Timmons, J.


Jeger, George (Goole)
Palmer, A. M. F.
Tomney, F.


Jeger, Dr. Santo (St. Pancras, S.)
Pannell, Charles
Turner-Samuels, M.


Jenkins, R. H. (Stechford)
Pargiter, G. A.
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn


Johnson, James (Rugby)
Parker, J.
Usborne, H. C.


Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)
Paton, J.
Viant, S. P.


Jones, David (Hartlepool)
Peart, T. F.
Wallace, H. W.


Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Plummer, Sir Leslie
Watkins, T. E.


Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Popplewell, E.
Webb, Rt. Hon. M. (Bradford, C.)


Keenan, W.
Porter, G.
Weitzman, D.


Kenyon, C.
Price, Joseph T. (Westhoughton)
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)
Wells, William (Walsall)


King, Dr. H. M.
Proctor, W. T.
West, D. G.


Kinley, J.
Pursey, Cmdr. H.
Wheatley, Rt. Hon. John


Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Rankin, John
Wheeldon, W. E.


Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Reeves, J.
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Reid, Thomas (Swindon)
White, Henry (Derbyshire, N. E.)


Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Reid, William (Camlachie)
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Lewis, Arthur
Rhodes, H.
Wigg, George


Lindgren, G. S.
Richards, R.
Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.


Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.
Robens, Rt. Hon. A.
Wilkins, W. A.


Logan, D. G.
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Willey, F. T.


MacColl, J. E.
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernavonshire)
Williams, David (Neath)


McGhee, H. G.
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Abertillery)


McInnes, J.
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


McKay, John (Wallsend)
Ross, William
Williams, W. R. (Droylsden)


McLeavy, F.
Royle, C.
Williams, W. T. (Hammersmith, S.)


MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)
Schofield, S. (Barnsley)
Wilson, Rt. Hon Harold (Huyton)


McNeil, Rt. Hon. H.
Shackleton, E. A. A.
Winterbottom, Ian (Nottingham, C.)


MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Shawcross, Rt. Hon. Sir Hartley
Winterbottom, Richard (Brightside)


Mainwaring, W. H.
Shinwell, Rt. Hon E.
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Short, E. W.
Wyatt, W. L.


Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Shurmer, P. L. E.
Yates, V. F.


Mann, Mrs. Jean
Silverman, Julius (Erdington)
Younger, Rt. Hon K.


Manuel, A. C.
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)



Mayhew, C. P.
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:




Mr. Bowdea and Mr. Pearson.




NOES


Aitken, W. T.
Bennett, Sir Peter (Edgbaston)
Burden, F. F. A.


Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S)
Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Butler, Rt. Hon R. A. (Saffron Walden)


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Bennett, William (Woodside)
Campbell, Sir David


Amory, Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Carr, Robert (Mitcham)


Anstruther-Gray, Major W. J.
Birch, Nigel
Carson, Hon. E.


Arbuthnot, John
Bishop, F. P.
Cary, Sir Robert


Ashton, H. (Chelmsford)
Black, C. W.
Channon, H.


Assheton, Rt. Hon. R. (Blackburn, W.)
Boothby, R. J. G.
Churchill, Rt. Hon. W. S.


Astor, Hon. J. J.
Bossom, A. C.
Clarke, Col. Ralph (East Grinstead)


Baker, P. A. D.
Boyd-Carpenter, J. A.
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmouth, W.)


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
Boyle, Sir Edward
Cole, Norman


Baldwin, A. E.
Braine, B. R.
Colegate, W. A.


Banks, Col. C.
Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)
Conant, Maj. R. J. E.


Barber, Anthony
Braithwaite, Lt.-Cdr. G. (Bristol, N. W.)
Cooper, Sqn. Ldr. Albert


Barlow, Sir John
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Cooper-Key, E. M.


Baxter, A. B.
Brooke, Henry (Hampstead)
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)


Beach, Maj. Hicks
Brooman-White, R. C.
Cranborne, Viscount


Beamish, Maj. Tufton
Browne, Jack (Govan)
Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Bullard, D. G.
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.


Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)
Bullock, Capt. M.
Crouch, R. F.


Bennett, F. M. (Reading, N.)
Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.
Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)







Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Price, Henry (Lewisham, W.)


Cuthbert, W. N.
Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.


Darling, Sir William (Edinburgh, S.)
Jones, A. (Hall Green)
Profumo, J. D.


Davidson, Viscountess
Joynson-Hicks, Hon. L. W.
Raikes, H. V.


De la Bére, Sir Rupert
Kaberry, D.
Rayner, Brig. R.


Deedes, W. F.
Keeling, Sir Edward
Redmayne, M.


Digby, S. Wingfield
Kerr, H. W. (Cambridge)
Remnant, Hon. P.


Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Lambert, Hon. G.
Renton, D. L. M.


Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.
Lambton, Viscount
Roberts, Peter (Heeley)


Donner, P. W.
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Robertson, Sir David


Doughty, C. J. A.
Langford-Holt, J. A.
Robinson, Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Malcolm
Law, Rt. Hon. R. K.
Robson-Brown, W.


Drayson, G. B.
Leather, E. H. C.
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Drewe, C.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Roper, Sir Harold


Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir Thomas (Richmond)
Legh, P. R. (Petersfield)
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard


Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.
Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T.
Russell, R. S.


Duthie, W. S.
Lindsay, Martin
Ryder, Capt. R. E. D.


Eccles, Rt. Hon. D. M.
Linstead, H. N.
Salter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur


Eden, Rt. Hon. A.
Llewellyn, D. T.
Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.


Elliot, Rt. Hon. W. E.
Lloyd, Rt. Hon. G. (King's Norton)
Savory, Prof. Sir Douglas


Erroll, F. J.
Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Schofield, Lt.-Col. W. (Rochdale)


Fell, A.
Lockwood, Lt.-Col. J. C.
Scott, R. Donald


Finlay, Graeme
Longden, Gilbert
Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.


Fisher, Nigel
Low, A. R. W.
Shepherd, William


Fleetwood-Hesketh, R.
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)


Fletcher-Cooke, C.
Lucas, P. B. (Brentford)
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter


Fort, R.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)


Foster, John
Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. O.
Smithers, Sir Waldron (Orpington)


Fraser, Sir Ian (Morecambe &amp; Lonsdale)
McAdden, S. J.
Smyth, Brig. J. G. (Norwood)


Fyfe, Rt. Hon. Sir David Maxwell
McCallum, Major D.
Snadden, W. McN.


Galbraith, Cmdr. T. D. (Pollok)
McCorquodale, Rt. Hon. M. S.
Soames, Capt. C.


Galbraith, T. G. D. (Hillhead)
Macdonald, Sir Peter (I. of Wight)
Spearman, A. C. M.


Gammans, L. D.
Mackeson, Brig. H. R.
Speir, R. M.


Garner-Evans, E. H.
McKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Spence, H. R. (Aberdeenshire, W.)


George, Rt. Hon. Maj. G. Lloyd
Maclay, Rt. Hon. John
Spens, Sir Patrick (Kensington, S.)


Glyn, Sir Ralph
Maclean, Fitzroy
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard


Godber, J. B.
Macleod, Rt. Hon. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Stevens, G. P.


Gomme-Duncan, Col. A.
Macmillan, Rt. Hon Harold (Bromley)
Steward, W. A. (Woolwich, W.)


Gough, C. F. H.
Macpherson, Maj. Niall (Dumfries)
Stewart, Henderson (Fife, E.)


Gower, H. R.
Maitland, Comdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Graham, Sir Fergus
Maitland, Patrick (Lanark)
Storey, S.


Gridley, Sir Arnold
Manningham-Buller, Sir R. E.
Strauss, Henry (Norwich, S.)


Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)


Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)
Marples, A. E.
Studholme, H. G.


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Marshall, Douglas (Bodmin)
Summers, G. S.


Harden, J. R. E.
Marshall, Sir Sidney (Sutton)
Sutcliffe, H.


Hare, Hon. J. H.
Maude, Angus
Taylor, Charles (Eastbourne)


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.)
Maudling, R.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Harris, Reader (Heston)
Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.
Teeling, W.


Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)
Medlicott, Brig. F.
Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. P. L. (Hereford)


Harvey, Air Cdre. A. V. (Macclesfield)
Mellor, Sir John
Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)


Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)
Molson, A. H. E.
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)


Harvie-Watt, Sir George
Monckton, Rt. Hon. Sir Walter
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr. R. (Croydon, W.)


Hay, John
Moore, Lt.-Col. Sir Thomas
Thornton-Kemsley, Col. C. N.


Head, Rt. Hon. A. H.
Morrison, John (Salisbury)
Tilney, John


Heald, Sir Lionel
Mott-Radclyffe, C. E.
Touche, Sir Gordon


Heath Edward
Nabarro, G. D. N.
Turner, H. F. L.


Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Nicholls, Harmar
Turton, R. H.


Higgs, J. M. C.
Nicholson, Godfrey (Farnham)
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Hill, Dr. Charles (Luton)
Nicholson, Nigel (Bournemouth, E.)
Vane, W. M. F.


Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Nield, Basil (Chester)
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Noble, Cmdr. A. H. P.
Vosper, D. F.


Hirst, Geoffrey
Nugent, G. R. H.
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Holland-Martin, C. J.
Nutting, Anthony
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (Marylebone)


Hollis, M. C.
Oakshott, H. D.
Walker-Smith, D. C.


Holmes, Sir Stanley (Harwich)
Odey, G. W.
Ward, Hon. George (Worcester)


Hopkinson, Rt. Hon. Henry
O'Neill, Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)
Ward, Miss I. (Tynemouth)


Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.
Ormsby-Gore, Hon. W. D.
Waterhouse, Capt. Rt. Hon. C.


Horobin, I. M.
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Watkinson, H. A.


Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Florence
Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)
Webbe, Sir H. (London &amp; Westminster)


Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)
Orr-Ewing, Ian L. (Weston-super-Mare)
White, Baker (Canterbury)


Howard, Greville (St. Ives)
Osborne, C.
Williams, Rt. Hon. Charles (Torquay)


Hudson, Sir Austin (Lewisham, N.)
Partridge, E.
Williams, Gerald (Tonbridge)


Hulbert, Wing Cmdr. N. J.
Peake, Rt. Hon. O.
Williams, Sir Herbert (Croydon, E.)


Hurd, A. R.
Perkins, W. R. D.
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Hutchinson, Sir Geoffrey (Ilford, N.)
Peto, Brig. C. H. M.
Wills, G.


Hutchison, Lt.-Com. Clark (E'b'rgh W.)
Peyton, J. W. W.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Hutchison, James (Scotstoun)
Pickthorn, K. W. M.
Wood, Hon. R.


Hyde, Lt.-Col. H. M.
Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
York, C.


Hylton-Foster, H. B. H.
Pitman, I. J.



Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Powell, J. Enoch
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:




Mr. Buchan-Hepburn and Mr. Butcher.


Question put, and agreed to.

DISUSED CHURCHES

10.11 p.m.

Sir John Crowder (Second Church Estates Commissioner): I beg to move,
That the Union of Benefices (Disused Churches) Measure, 1952, passed by the National Assembly of the Church of England, be presented to Her Majesty for Her Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament.
This Measure was favourably reported on by the Ecclesiastical Committee whose Report was presented to the House of Commons on 19th November. I think the objects of the Measure and the effects of its various Clauses are clearly explained in the comments and explanations in the appendix to the Report. It may, however, be of some assistance to the House if I try to explain in a few words the background and objects of this Measure.
The shift of population which has taken place during the last century from the country to the towns and from the towns to the new housing areas on their boundaries has presented the Church not only with the problem of providing priests, but also of dealing with the churches which have become redundant owing to reductions of the population in certain areas. This problem was considered by a committee set up by the Church Assembly under the chairmanship of the Bishop of Norwich in 1949.
In its Report the Committee pointed out that while the Union of Benefices Measure, 1923, provided powers to demolish redundant churches and sell the site and materials, or appropriating the building for any educational or charitable purposes in connection with the Church of England, the Reorganisation Areas Measure, 1944, included wider powers of appropriation. These powers, however, were applicable only to the limited number of churches coming within the provisions of the Reorganisation Areas Measure, which is of limited duration and applies only to war damaged and development areas. The Committee recommended that the power given under the Union of Benefices Measure should be extended so as to make the wider powers of the Reorganisation Areas Measure of general permanent application. The general object of this Measure is to give effect to that recommendation.
A particular effect would be to authorise redundant churches to be put to such wider use—as an example, for use as a museum or perhaps for use by the Boy Scouts. This will relieve parochial authorities in relevant cases from the burden of upkeep of the buildings which are no longer required for religious worship and which might otherwise fall into disrepair and generally in time into ruin. This Measure will, of course, help the Historic Churches Preservation Trust in its object of preserving historic churches.
Under this Measure the Church Commissioners may prepare and submit to Her Majesty in Council a scheme to give effect to proposals made by the pastoral committee, with the bishop's consent, for demolishing a redundant church and the sale of the materials on the site, excluding any land which is used as a churchyard, and may appropriate the church or any part of it to such use as may be specified in the scheme and subject to any scheme so specified which would include the appointment of trustees. A scheme made under this Measure is subject to the full procedure laid down in the Union of Benefices Measure, that is to say, a draft of it must be published locally and submitted to the patron of the parochial church council as well as to the pastoral committee.
Any party interested, and not only those who have received the draft of the proposals, has the right to submit objections. If and when this scheme is settled and the bishop consents, it is certified by the Commissioners to Her Majesty in Council and any interested party whose objections have been overruled has then a right of appeal to Her Majesty in Council, such appeal being heard by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The Judicial Committee can advise Her Majesty to confirm the scheme, to reject it or to return it to the Church Commissioners for amendment.
There is an added safeguard, namely, that if the scheme proposes the demolition of a church it must be laid before both Houses of Parliament and either House may pray against it. If the building is left standing it can be appropriated only for the purposes laid down in the scheme and for no other. Once a building has been appropriated for a special purpose, it cannot be used for any other purpose until a fresh scheme is


made, after complying with the statutory procedure once again.
I trust that the House will agree that this is a non-controversial Measure which has been very carefully gone into by all concerned, who are anxious to help the parishes to preserve certain churches which might otherwise be left uncared for by anyone, owing to the lack of funds.

Sir Richard Acland: I beg to second the Motion.

10.18 p.m.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: I do not oppose this Measure, because I think that the Church, in a matter which concerns church affairs, has a full right to its own measure of self-determination. I agree with the Ecclesiastical Committee of which I am a member, that this Measure does not prejudicially affect the constitutional rights of Her Majesty's subjects.
But I think we ought to know quite well what we are doing in passing this Measure. No limit is put upon the use to which a church will be put. My hon. Friend referred to museums or something for the Boy Scouts. A church might equally be used as a cinema. My hon. Friend also referred to the fact that consultation must be had with the Central Council of Diocesan Advisory Committees for the Care of Churches, the pastoral committee of the diocese appointed under the Pastoral Reorganisation Measure, 1949, and the patron and the incumbent of the benefice and the parochial church council for the parish in which the church is situated.
But this is only consultation, and the power is entirely in the hands of the Church Commissioners and the bishops. I am saying what I am saying because I do not think this Measure should be accepted by Parliament without full warning being given to the Church Assembly that Parliament is well aware of the dangers that may occur if the rights conferred under this Measure are used without a due sense of responsibility. I believe that the Church Commissioners and the bishops will use this Measure with a due sense of responsibility, but I felt it was my duty to point out the dangers which are inherent in it if by any conceivable chance the powers are misused.

10.20 p.m.

Mr. S. S. Awbery: The changes involved in this Measure adversely affect a considerable number of my constituents. They have been to see me to discuss the problem of the closing of churches in the Bristol area, and I want to put two or three questions to the hon. Member for Finchley (Sir J. Crowder). In the Bristol area there are churches which have served this and past generations well, but I can see that, as a result of this Measure and the suggested reorganisation, a bill will be put up outside churches stating, "These churches are for sale." Indeed, there is already a plan in my constituency that two churches shall be sold, and my constituents are very much concerned about it. Other churches are to be merged, and I want to know exactly what is going to happen.
The blitzed cities are affected more than any others, and that is why my constituents are concerned. When a church was destroyed in 1941–42, the parishioners improvised and did the best they could in the circumstances to keep the members of the church together and their Sunday school going. In one case, with only a lay member in charge, there were 120 children in the Sunday school. That church is to be closed down and possibly transferred to a church at the other end of the parish. I do not know whether the children will go to the new church, but I am concerned about the plan and should like to know what is likely to happen under this scheme.
Some of the areas from which churches are to be taken will be redeveloped. For instance, in one case where a church is to become redundant, flats are shortly to be built in the area, and there will then be no church accommodation for the people who move into the flats when they are built. What do the Commissioners intend to do in those circumstances? Where two churches are merged, as has been suggested in one case brought to my notice, what is to happen to the people at the far end of the parish? In one instance, I understand that a parish will have 20,000 parishioners with only one incumbent and one lay man to look after them. I suggest that to make a church redundant in such circumstances is not the right course to adopt. In other cases, churches are a great distance one from the other, and it is unreasonable to expect


parishioners from one church to go to the other.
Another point which I should like the hon. Member for Finchley to answer concerns endowments. When churches are amalgamated, what is to happen to endowments which have been made to the parishioners? Perhaps I may also take this opportunity, because I shall get no other, of commenting on the state of churchyards, particularly where the churches are still in use. They have got into a deplorable condition, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman will draw the attention of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to them.

10.24 p.m.

Mr. Angus Maude: There is no doubt that we should look carefully at this Measure, but I must say, having studied both the Measure and the Report, that I should not have thought that any of the points raised by the hon. Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Awbery) could conceivably come within them. As I understand the purport of the Measure, it has nothing whatever to do with a decision as to which churches should be merged or which closed down. As I understand it—and I think it should be explained clearly to us—this Measure provides only for what can be done with the building when the decision as to the parish and the benefice has already been taken under another Measure. So that I should not really have thought that the points the hon. Member has raised, which in themselves clearly are of the greatest importance to his constituents and to everybody else, really had anything to do with this Measure.
What, I think, we might have explained to us quite clearly is a question which, I think, arises out of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Nicholson). As I understand Section 1 of the Measure, it is not in fact possible to sell a church building as such. It is possible, as I understand this Measure, to have the church pulled down and to sell the materials when it has been pulled down, and it is possible to sell the land which forms the site of the church; but I do not understand that it is possible to sell a consecrated building as it stands. I would agree that it would be an exceedingly dangerous thing if one could, because I doubt if any safeguards we imposed

could really last in perpetuity. So I think we ought to be quite clear about this—and if my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Sir J. Crowder) would clear it up, I think we should all be grateful—that we cannot, under this Measure, sell a church building as it stands.

Mr. Nicholson: Section 1 (2, c).

Mr. Maude: No, I do not think "appropriation" means sale, but this is precisely the sort of point that I should like my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley to explain to us. I understand that the term "appropriation", as it is explained, I think, in the Report of the Ecclesiastical Committee, means that a church building may be used under a scheme made in the diocese, and subject to the control of the committees set up by the diocese, and can be used for purposes approved by the Church; but I do not believe one can sell it under the terms of Section 1 (2, c). "Appropriation" and "use" of a church are surely not the same as selling a building as it stands, but I think we should be grateful if this could be made quite clear to us.

10.32 p.m.

Mr. Tom Driberg: I think all of us who have served on the Ecclesiastical Committee share some of the apprehensions that have been expressed on both sides of the House; but I also think that the hon. Member for Ealing, South (Mr. Maude), who has just spoken, was quite right in his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Awbery), who was really discussing difficulties that arise under a different and much earlier Measure, the Union of Benefices Measure.
I am quite sure that the ecclesiastical authorities will take careful note of the views and feelings expressed by my hon. Friend, particularly with regard to possible future shifts of population back to areas and districts which are at present rather empty owing to the blitz or any other cause. It is possible to foresee that some areas which are at present under-populated may be re-populated again in 10 or 20 years' time, and that will certainly have to be borne in mind.
I think also that the hon. Member for Ealing, South was correct in his comment on the other point about which anxiety has been expressed by the hon.


Member for Farnham (Mr. Nicholson). A building that is at present a church or has been used as a church cannot become a cinema under this Measure, unless the bishop or the Commissioners are so foolish—or short-sighted, perhaps we would agree—as to say that it should be so.

Mr. Nicholson: I am sure the hon. Member will realise I was not exaggerating. There is nothing in the Measure to prevent a church becoming a cinema. I know it is ridiculous to suggest that a bishop would permit that, but, technically, there is nothing in the Measure to prevent that.

Mr. Driberg: Oh, but I assure the hon. Member that there is. Under this Measure one can pull down a church, one can sell the materials, and one can sell the vacant site; but one cannot sell outright the existing, perhaps the consecrated, building.

Mr. Nicholson: No. Under Clause 20 (1, a) in the Appendix, there can be appropriation for any use provided under the trust arrangements. After all, it is the duty of Parliament to consider anything that may happen from the Measures that it agrees to. I repeat that there is nothing technically to prevent the bishop agreeing that St. Paul's Cathedral should become a cinema.

Mr. Driberg: I absolutely agree that it is our duty in Parliament to "vet" these Measures very carefully, and I have always believed in that. Long before I was a member of the Ecclesiastical Committee, I occasionally used to divide the House against some of these Measures. In fact, I thought that the hon. Gentleman leaned over too far at the beginning of his speech in saying that we ought to give the Church almost absolute self-determination in these matters, which was never intended by the original Act.
However, on this point I think that the hon. Gentleman is misunderstanding the word "appropriation" which does not mean the same as "sale." "Appropriation" means that it can be used for other purposes, subject to all sorts of safeguards and, of course, subject to the bishop and the authorities concerned not being absolute lunatics or absolutely sacrilegious in intention. One has to

admit that much, but I do not think it is very likely that that would happen, and I do not think that the hon. Gentleman imagines that it would.

Mr. Nicholson: I agree.

Mr. Driberg: Under this Measure, an existing church building cannot be sold outright. That is a safeguard against its being turned into a cinema.

Mr. Nicholson: Mr. Nicholson rose—

Mr. Awbery: Under the reorganisation scheme, a draft of which I have before me, it is stated specifically that one of the churches, called St. Silas' Church, shall be vested in the Church Commissioners for sale on lease or exchange. The other one is to be taken down, and the site where the ruins would be would then be offered for sale, also for some other purpose. I should like to know whether that is quite clear, and whether the people in the area have been consulted in what has been suggested by the reorganisation committee.

Mr. Driberg: The hon. Gentleman who sponsors this Measure will correct me if I am wrong, if he replies by leave of the House, but my impression is that that is a purely local scheme under a previous Measure. It has nothing to do with the Measure we are discussing tonight.
I do not know the rights or wrongs of that particular case in Bristol, but under the previous Measure there was a debate in the House, a year ago or less, about a scheme affecting churches in Lambeth. We had quite a discussion about it, because there was some apprehension that the congregation of a particular church in Lambeth were being unfairly treated. I think it is fair to say that as a result of the debate in this House, although the scheme was not cancelled, its application was somewhat alleviated and delayed, out of deference to the wishes of the congregation of the church. It is possible for my hon. Friend to pray against particular schemes, which have to come before the House for approval, anyway, but that is not the point we are discussing tonight.

Mr. Maude: I think I have now found the part of this Measure which clears this question beyond doubt. The last words of Clause 2 (1), which completely clarify


the position about appropriation, say that when the property is appropriated, it
shall be held by the Diocesan Authority on trust …
which, surely, definitely precludes sale under any scheme of appropriation.

Mr. Driberg: Quite. I am obliged to the hon. Member, and I think that that is the answer to the hon. Member for Farnham about appropriation.
This will not be the first time, of course, in modern times that so-called redundant churches have been demolished and their sites and materials sold. Most of us could quote instances. Many of us remember the Church of St. Mary in Charing Cross Road, where there was a prominent Calvary that used to look down night after night on the changing scene below. Many of us regret its disappearance a few years ago. All of us are sorry when that happens, but on the whole the apprehensions expressed tonight—which are genuine, and I sympathise with them—are unfounded or irrelevant, and therefore I think we are right in supporting what is a necessary, though, in some respects, a sad, measure.

Mr. Awbery: I thank my hon. Friend, and consider it is wise for me to pray against this reorganisation system rather than oppose these proposals.

Sir Patrick Spens: I felt the same anxiety as my hon. Friend when I saw the Measure, particularly because the provisions of appropriation in the original Measure of 1944 were limited to educational and charitable purposes. The whole object of this Measure is to extend the purposes for which the appropriation could be made. It was pointed out in the explanation that there were certain churches which it was not thought could be usefully appropriated within the narrow limits of the original Measure. Therefore, this Measure does, as my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Nicholson) has pointed out, make it possible to appropriate a church for any purpose whatever. The question then arises about safeguards to prevent its being appropriated for a purpose of which none of us would approve.
Any scheme under the Measure is to be fully advertised locally. That is the

first thing. Everybody in the parish, or anyone else outside, can then make representations to the Commissioners. The Commissioners have to prepare a scheme, the bishop has to approve it, and it is still possible for anyone who objects to take the matter to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, even though the bishop has approved the scheme. Even so, my hon. Friend is right in saying that it has to come before both Houses, which gives us a chance to pray against it. It is clear, in those circumstances, that appropriations outside the educational and charitable limits in the original Measure are going to be few and far between. It is inconceivable that in any built-up area or town there would not be any educational or charitable purpose for which the building would be wanted. It is only in country areas, where strictly there was a legal educational or charitable purpose, to which it could be put. Subject to those safeguards, there is every protection to prevent a church being used for a purpose against which we could object.

Mr. James Hudson: I usually stay for these debates in which ecclesiastical questions are involved in the general expectation that there will be some hon. Member saying precisely what the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Nicholson) has said. It has been dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg), but, he and all of us, will have to remember that Parliament has been placed in the position of holding general supervision over the arrangements made by the Church. It is not of our doing. It is a position the Church defends as necessary for the problems it still has to work out.
The Church has, in the past, generally insisted on the Establishment and all that flows from it. It insists that Parliament should continue to have a general supervision over these matters. I confess quite frankly that I feel disqualified for the job, especially on this occasion. I belong to a religious communion that cannot understand the point made by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens), when he said that there must be some purpose for which churches could be used.
I belong to a communion which pays no respect to the buildings in which they hold their religious observances. Even


today you will see old members of the Society going into the church building with their hats on as a mark of disrespect for the building in order to emphasise that it is not the building that is important. Although that may have been the original stand taken by the Society of Friends in their long experience, they have had to end up by being in much the same position as that mentioned by hon. Members.
They know enough to appreciate that there is a very anxious feeling about places where religious observance has gone on. For that reason I am getting up now to say that I should certainly not think of opposing this Bill, and associate myself with everything that has been said about the buildings without agreeing to the rather fundamental point that was put by hon. Gentleman opposite.

Sir P. Spens: I personally should have very strong objections indeed to a building that was used as a Friends meeting house being turned into a night club.

Mr. Hudson: I should feel the same thing. Curiously enough I know of a Friends meeting house which was turned into a canteen.

Sir P. Spens: I hope the canteen was run on the principles for which the hon. Member stands.

Mr. Hudson: The building had passed out of their control, and it was then that it was turned into a canteen in which things were done to which I should object.
As one who holds the views that I do on church buildings and on questions of segregation, I cannot be expected to conform to the views of hon. Gentlemen opposite, but I count it my right and duty to give judgment on questions of this sort. I do it to the best of my capacity with sympathy for the feelings of men and women who, I am quite sure, hold their views very seriously indeed. I must add this warning. The churches will find that the logical result of this arrangement will repeatedly bring us to a situation of this kind where so many of us will take responsibility for matters that we would rather see left outside the domain of Parliament. That can only be when the Church is willing to take an attitude

similar to that of the Nonconformist Churches.

Mr. Nicholson: May I say that I am sure that the Church of England uses Parliament as a jury consisting of honourable men who are Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Nonconformists, even atheists, who, acting as a jury, will look after the interests of ordinary people with just as much conscientiousness as if they were ardent churchmen. As an Anglican I welcome the fact that the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Hudson) is a member of that jury. I was not meaning to impugn the right of Parliament, or the duty of Parliament, to give a verdict on this Measure. I think it is of importance that the affairs of the Church of England should be watched over not only by the Church Assembly but by the elected representatives of the people.

Mr. Driberg: While agreeing with much of what the hon. Member has said, I suggest to him that we must admit that the Church of England did not accept the verdict of the jury in 1928.

10.47 p.m.

Sir J. Crowder: With the leave of the House, I will try to reply shortly to the questions raised. The hon. Member for Bristol, Central (Mr. Awbery) raised the question of the closing of a church in Bristol. As has been pointed out, there is already power to do that. This Measure is only concerned with the future use to which that church shall be put. There has been a prayer against the closing of this church in another place this afternoon. I understand that it has been withdrawn. I believe that there is to be an appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
I thank the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) for explaining that this Measure has nothing to do with the closing of churches, but only with the future use of churches which are closed. I am advised that no church can be sold as such. What other hon. Members have said is correct, that the church has to be pulled down and the site sold. For those who are still nervous regarding the safeguards, I would say the consultations must be real, full, and formal. Moreover, before proceeding to draft a scheme, the Church Commissioners require to be satisfied that there has been full consultation.
In many cases, probably a large majority, the proposal will be initiated by those interested because they cannot afford to keep the church going. There must be consultation with the Central Council, the pastoral committee of the diocese, the incumbent, and the parochial church council. The Church Commissioners are appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in some cases, and in others by the Government. They go into these cases fully. They are appointed to look after the interest of the Church. We would never agree to any scheme—I do not think any committee would put forward a scheme—to turn a dis-used church into a cinema, or into anything not suitable. All these questions go through two or three committees of the Church Commissioners before coming up for final decision. The bishop concerned is consulted, hon. Members of the House approach me, and every possible method is employed to see that the wishes of the majority of people are carried out.
I must say that the Church of England is short of priests and of money. We shall have to go on amalgamating parishes so as to be able to carry on. It is a fact, I agree, that in many cases local people want to keep a church going with very few people in it; but it is just impossible to find an incumbent in most cases. More benefices will have to be united as time goes on; and that may be to the good, or perhaps not. But, in the circumstances, we think it as well to unite perhaps four or five benefices and have a curate under one incumbent.
The measure I have introduced tonight is simply for more power than we have at the moment, and I hope that I have satisfied everybody although, if there is any point on which any hon. Member needs help, I shall be pleased to try to give it.

Mr. Awbery: I understand that the premises are not to be sold. But the re-organisation committee states that St. Silas's Church shall be vested in the Church Commissioners for sale. If sold, will it be used for a canteen, or even a cinema? Is not this irregular in relation to the Measure now before the House?

Sir J. Crowder: I do not say it is irregular, but this is a different point. The Church Commissioners would sell

the church to be pulled down, but not to be used in the ways in which the hon. Gentleman suggests. I think that that is quite clear. The trustees would have every sort of safeguard put in, and it would not be sold for any of the purposes which he suggests.

Resolved:
That the Union of Benefices (Disused Churches) Measure, 1952, passed by the National Assembly of the Church of England, be presented to Her Majesty for Her Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament.

BLITZED CITIES (RECONSTRUCTION)

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Drewe.]

10.52 p.m.

Mr. Ralph Morley: I wish to bring to the notice of the House, as I have done on previous occasions, the question of the reconstruction of our blitzed cities. The people in those cities and towns suffered heavy civilian casualties from repeated and heavy air raids during the last war, and many thousands of men, women, and children were killed.
But, in addition to the frightful human casualties, there was very great destruction and loss of property. Shops and houses, offices, churches, and schools were destroyed, and it is, I think, generally agreed that the citizens of the blitzed areas endured the terror inflicted by day and night with very great courage.
Frequent panegyrics were uttered in this country and abroad on their courage and endurance, but our people were encouraged at the time by the thought that, when victory came—and they never once doubted but that it would come—reasonable priority from our material resources would come to them for the reconstruction of their towns and cities.
These people were fortified by a statement by the present Prime Minister who, in March, 1945, said that we were at last within sight of victory. The right hon. Gentleman added that, of course, we should have to concentrate first on those parts of our cities and towns which had


suffered most heavily from air attack. My Conservative opponent at the last General Election quoted that statement of the Prime Minister in his election address, and I have no doubt that it was successful in obtaining a good many votes for him. But, unfortunately, the citizens of those areas have been disappointed in their hopes that they would be given priority in capital and material allocation for rebuilding as soon as the war was over.
It is true that in most of the blitzed towns and cities a considerable number of houses have been built since 1945. For example, in Southampton we had 5,000 houses completely destroyed by enemy action. But successive borough councils, using the admirable housing schemes initiated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), have since 1945, by public and by private enterprise, supplied the citizens of Southampton with 6,885 new houses, so that in Southampton today we have more houses than we had before the war.
It must be admitted, of course, that 1,746 of these 6,885 houses are prefabricated, but these prefabricated houses, as most hon. Members know, are fitted up inside as well as many a flat in London for which one would have to pay five guineas a week to rent. But while we in Southampton have done pretty well in the building of houses, as, I believe, have most other blitzed cities, very few shops and offices have been reconstructed in that city since 1945.
The enemy destroyed almost the whole of our main shopping centres, and one can now walk down what were in pre-war days our main shopping streets and see acre after acre of bare and desolate ground upon which handsome shops and offices formerly stood. Therefore, we were looking forward very anxiously indeed to the statement to be made by the Minister of Housing and Local Government in order to know what would be the allocation next year of capital expenditure for the reconstruction of the blitzed cities.
We were extremely disappointed when we heard that the allocation for new capital construction for the 18 blitzed cities of this country next year was to be only £4,500,000. I understand that out of that sum £2 million is a carry-over, so

that actually there will be only £2,500,000 of new capital construction in our blitzed cities next year.
I am informed that the annual capital expenditure of this country is now running at the rate of some £2,000 million, and £4,500,000 represents only.2 per cent. of that figure. Is it the fulfilment of the Prime Minister's pledge, that only.2 per cent. of the total annual expenditure is to be devoted next year to the rebuilding of our blitzed cities? My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. King) had a Ministerial reply the other day which stated that only a quarter of 1 per cent. of the amount to be spent on the nation's total building programme was represented by the £2,500,000 of fresh construction to be allocated to the blitzed cities next year.
The first question I wish to ask the Parliamentary Secretary is, how was this £4,500,000 arrived at? By what strange esoteric method of computation was it thought that.2 per cent. of the nation's annual capital expenditure would be sufficient for the reconstruction of the blitzed cities? I will take my city of Southampton as an example, because that is the one with which I am most familiar.
The largest allocation we received was in 1949, when we were allocated £438,000. In 1950, the allocation was £202,000; in 1951, £240,000, and from January to September this year it was £163,500—a total allocation during the four years of £1,045,000. That is an average of £261,000 a year. In the figures given recently by the Minister, Southampton is to be allocated £350,000 next year. Of that sum £87,500 is a carry-over from this year, so that the actual reconstruction next year will be about the same as the average for the past four years.
It is argued by the leaders of the borough council that the total cost of the reconstruction of the blitzed areas of Southampton would amount to £39,608,000, and at the present rate of progress, at the average of £262,000 a year, it would not be until 2088 that the work would be completed. The Parliamentary Secretary is a young man, and we hope he will have a very long life, although on this side, of course, we hope only a very short period in office; but although the prospects of longevity are continually increasing, at the present rate of progress he will not


live to see the reconstruction of the blitzed cities.
The leaders of the borough council are of the opinion that we should have been able to spend in the last four years something like an average of £350,000. To keep up with that average, it would be necessary for us to be allocated £705,000 next year. But in Southampton we are very reasonable and moderate people. We always keep to the middle of the way in our thinking, and I am not asking the Minister to allocate that sum next year, but I am asking him to allocate £528,000. With that sum we could get on with 13 projects that are very urgent and which should be proceeded with next year.
Of course, in asking for our allocation to be increased, I do not want the additional amount to be subtracted from the allocation to the other blitzed cities. Far from it. I want the Minister to reconsider the global sum and to see if this meagre sum of £2,500,000 cannot be increased.
It has been argued in previous debates that it would be unwise to encourage more rapid reconstruction of destroyed shops and offices because it would take away labour from the more urgent work of building houses. That is no longer a tenable argument, because in the reconstruction of shops and offices most firms use their own labour force. It is a specialised kind of labour and it is not drawn away from house building labour. In fact, one shop was rebuilt in Southampton last year—the British Homes Stores—entirely by the firm's own labour force.
Another argument used frequently in the past is that we cannot afford to increase the area of reconstruction of shops and offices because there is not sufficient steel for the purpose. I wonder if that argument is tenable any longer, since we are told that steel production is running at an unprecedentedly high level. We have never produced so much steel in this country as we are producing in this year. In addition to that, we shall have the million tons of steel that we are going to get from the United States of America.
Apart from the increased production of steel, it is also a fact that many firms who are waiting for licences to rebuild their blitzed premises have their own supplies

of steel, almost sufficient in themselves to carry out the work of reconstruction which they need. For instance, I am told that Woolworths, who are waiting for a licence to rebuild in Southampton, have 160 tons in hand, and C. & A. Modes, who are also waiting for a licence to rebuild, have 150 tons of steel in hand. So I do not think it can be argued that the capital allocation for reconstruction must be limited either through lack of steel or lack of labour.
As I said earlier, the announcement of this very limited allocation for capital expenditure has met with considerable protest in practically the whole of the blitzed towns in this country. I can only quote a few of the protests, but I will quote the protest that has been made by Hull as reported in the "Hull Daily Mail" on Wednesday, 26th November:
Councillor R. W. Buckle, deputy Chairman of the Town Planning Committee, told the 'Hull Daily Mail' yesterday, 'Our feeling is that Hull's allocation is very disappointing and hoplessly inadequate. We feel bitter that we have not been given a fair chance when we have the labour and the materials. We shall expect our M.P.s to stamp on Mr. Macmillan's doorstep'.
I should imagine that the stamp of the hon. and gallant Member for Hull, Central (Captain Hewitson) would be an earth-shaking event.
Mr. Buckle goes on to say:
We shall stamp ourselves if he will let us. Maybe we shall stamp if he doesn't let us.
The Mayor of Southampton has said recently:
I am by no means fully satisfied.
Alderman John Lane, who is the Chairman of the Town Planning Committee in Southampton, said:
Every one of the badly blitzed cities is going to express disappointment and dissatisfaction. I am starting the chorus of protest.
Sir Clifford Tozer is Chairman of the Reconstruction Committee, and Alderman John Lane is a leading member of the Conservative Party in Southampton, and there is, of course, a Conservative majority on the Southampton Borough Council. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Probably it will not be of very long duration, but I do not want to damp the enthusiasm of the hon. and gallant Member for Portsmouth, West (Brigadier Clarke). Sir Clifford Tozer said:


It would be foolish to pretend I am satisfied with the allocation. I hope we will have some more.
I am certain that if there were time, every representative of the blitzed areas present would join in this protest against the meagreness of the allocation that is proposed for the blitzed cities. This matter I am raising tonight is not by any means a party matter at all, and I do not wish to make a party matter of it. It is on record that I made a number of speeches criticising the lack of help to the blitzed cities under the Labour Government in 1945–50 and 1950–51—not that they did not give help; they did give a considerable amount of help; they gave more help than has been given in some instances by the present Administration.
The allocation to Southampton next year is only £350,000, of which £87,500 is carry-over, while the allocation to Southampton under a Labour Government in 1949 was £438,000. But, as I have said, I do not wish to make a party matter of this. I criticised the slowness of the reconstruction of the blitzed cities under the two Labour Governments. My hon. Friend the Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot) deployed his hereditary eloquence in a series of brilliant speeches to the same effect, and my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Southampton, Test made the subject of the blitzed cities the chief topic of his maiden speech in the House. On all sides, therefore, we are asking the Minister to be a little more generous. In this instance we are all Oliver Twists, asking for more.
I therefore ask the Minister, when he replies, to tell us the truth about this. Why is the allocation so meagre? Surely, it cannot be for lack of steel. After all, we should claim a fair degree of priority in the allocation of steel for the reconstruction of the blitzed towns. It is not a question of labour, because most of the councils in the blitzed towns will say that they have the labour available for the construction which they think should be put in hand immediately.
Is it that the Ministry are afraid of increasing the total capital expenditure of the country? Is the Minister intimidated by that weekly chronicle of woe, "The Economist," which affirms almost every week that our capital expenditure is too

large and may lead to further inflation? If it is a case of keeping down the total amount of capital expenditure, we would suggest to the Minister that he might cut down some of the capital expenditure in the non-blitzed cities.
There must be a good deal of capital expenditure allowed in the non-blitzed cities. The rateable value of Southampton is only 94 per cent. of what it was pre-war. For Plymouth, the figure is 95 per cent., and for Portsmouth, 96 per cent. of pre-war. But the rateable value of Reading is 129 per cent. compared with pre-war. Reading is a non-blitzed city, and could not have had such an increase in its rateable value unless it had been allowed a considerable amount of capital expenditure. I hope, therefore, that in his reply the Minister will be able to give us some reassurance that more capital expenditure will be allowed to the blitzed cities for the very urgent tasks of reconstruction which they ought now to put in hand.

11.12 p.m.

Brigadier Terence Clarke: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Itchen (Mr. Morley) for having raised this subject tonight. As time is short, there is no time for all the Members for Portsmouth to speak, and I have been asked by my hon. Friends the Members for Portsmouth, South and Langstone, to state the case for Portsmouth.
We in Portsmouth are more than happy that this year we have been allotted more for blitzed cities than we have ever had before. Nevertheless, we feel that that is not sufficient, and we share the views of the hon. Member for Itchen. We hope that the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot), when he writes in "Tribune" this week, will say what the Socialists did in the past and how much more the Conservatives have given us this year.
But I hope that the hon. Member for Itchen will still press the Minister to give us more in the future. We are not satisfied. We never shall be satisfied until our city is rebuilt, but I am sure that after another two years of Conservative Government we shall once more have the blitzed cities just as any member of the British Empire would like to see them, restored once more to their proper state. After six years of Socialism, they are right down to the bottom.

11.14 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Ernest Marples): The hon. Member for Itchen (Mr. Morley) has pursued with great assiduity the cause which his heart is set upon, and that is to rehabilitate the blitzed cities. He has stated the case with moderation, and the debate has been extremely good tempered. Perhaps in the short time—seven minutes—that remains to me, I can try to reply to some of the principal points.
The hon. Member asked how the "meagre" global sum of £4½ million was arrived at, and by what strange esoteric method it was calculated. I shall tell him. It was calculated at precisely twice what the Socialist Government gave to the blitzed cities.

Mr. Michael Foot: It is not true.

Mr. Marples: The hon. Member must not become so wild, because the work done in 1949 and 1950 was £2,300,000, in 1951 it was £3½ million, in 1952 £4½ million and in 1953 it will be £4½ million. That allocation will be matched in steel. In other words, it will not merely be a paper allocation which cannot be carried out because of a shortage of essential ingredients in building. It is an allocation that it is possible to reach because we have provided the materials. We have been able to increase it, not at the expense of other non-blitzed cities as the hon. Gentleman suggested, but because productivity in the building industry has risen because the flow of materials to the industry to sites all over the country is better, and because confidence in the industry is better. The hon. Member for Itchen must recognise, whether he likes it or not, that this Government is giving twice as much as his Government did.

Mr. Foot: It is not so.

Mr. Marples: The hon. Gentleman must restrain himself. He has an opportunity of writing weekly, which I do not get. He also appears on television with a big staff, and he must restrain himself here while I reply to the debate. Therefore, some hon. Members might congratulate the operatives who are getting greater productivity in the building industry,

and congratulate the Government on enabling the blitzed cities to do twice as much as they did under the previous Government.

Mr. Foot: Absolute nonsense. I have figures from HANSARD.

Mr. Marples: If the hon. Gentleman will listen I will explain. The test is a question of what resources and materials are spent in the blitzed cities from 1st January one year to 31st January the next year on all projects whether started earlier, or begun during that period. It is wrong to take the value of the work started. For example, if a £10 million power station is started at Southampton on 31st December, 1950, would the hon. Gentleman say that that amount of work had been done? It will take five years to finish that work. It is wrong also to take the number of projects finished. If the power station is finished on 1st January, 1957, no Government could claim that the whole £10 million belongs to any particular year.
What has to be done is to take the uncompleted portion of the work at the beginning of the year, add to it the value of the projects started or licensed during the year, and deduct from it the uncompleted portion of the jobs at the end. In that way one arrives at the amount of building work done in any particular year in any particular area.
In 1953, taking it as a test, we find we shall probably licence, and in giving this figure I am not committing the Government, about £4½ million worth of work in the blitzed cities, of which £2½ million worth will be done in that year and another £2 million which was carried over from last year will be done, making in all £4½ million. The remaining part of that which we planned for 1953 will be done in 1954. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman must reconcile his figures and not start on this propaganda nonsense about so many schools not started. The monetary figure is an assessment of men and materials poured into building projects in that year. The distribution of the £4½ million is twice as generous as any previous Government has made. The hon. Member for Itchen said we should give more to Southampton. Every blitzed city says that. If we gave more to them, will the hon. Gentleman say to whom we should give less?

Mr. Morley: I said increase the global sum so as to give more to Southampton and other cities.

Mr. Marples: In 12 months we have doubled what the previous Government did. Perhaps we shall be able to do better if we get greater productivity. The hon. Member asked that the sum for Southampton should be increased. He referred to Plymouth, and asked also that there should be less building at Reading.

Mr. Foot: The suggestion was that greater priority ought to be given to blitzed cities, especially when the whole of the hon. Gentleman's case is disproved by the fact that there is growing unemployment among building workers in the blitzed cities.

Mr. Marples: The hon. Member's phobia about unemployment is only matched by his eloquence on television. There is no evidence of unemployment. If there should be unemployment, the Minister of Works has a scheme whereby when any district can prove to him that it has unemployed resources of men and materials it need only apply to the Regional Office for more houses and it will get the go-ahead straight away, and the materials. Therefore it is wrong to say that there is unemployment in the building industry. In the decorating

trade there may be, but decorating would not be much good to blitzed cities.
The hon. Member for Itchen said that labour and materials are available. How does he know that? Does he know what projects will be going on in Southampton? Does he know what power stations may be started? I would ask him whether he knows what would be the peak labour force for a power station in Southampton?

Mr. Morley: I cannot answer offhand. All I know is that members of the Borough Council have assured me that they have enough labour for the projects which they want to put in hand next year.

Mr. Marples: It is not possible to make an assessment of what will be available unless one knows of every project which is being entered upon. For example, is there going to be an extension of the oil refinery in Southampton. I do not want to deny that the blitzed cities have a great claim on—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'Clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Twenty-two Minutes past Eleven o'Clock.